1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
10 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
13 * New native configurations
15 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
16 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
17 MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
21 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
23 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
24 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
25 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
26 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
27 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
29 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
30 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
31 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
32 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
33 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
34 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
35 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
36 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
38 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
39 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
41 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
42 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
43 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
46 * REMOVED configurations and files
48 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
51 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
57 * All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
59 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
61 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
63 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
64 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
65 contents of this file.
69 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
71 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
73 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
75 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
76 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
77 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
78 greater level of detail.
80 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
82 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
83 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
84 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
87 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
89 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
90 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
91 machines ``out of the box''.
93 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
94 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
95 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
96 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
97 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
99 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
100 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
101 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
102 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
103 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
105 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
106 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
109 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
112 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
113 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
114 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
115 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
117 * New native configurations
119 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
120 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
124 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
125 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
126 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
127 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
129 * OBSOLETE configurations
131 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
132 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
134 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
137 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
138 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
139 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
140 be permanently REMOVED.
142 * Gould support removed
144 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
146 * New features for SVR4
148 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
149 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
150 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
152 * Many C++ enhancements
154 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
155 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
157 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
159 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
160 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
161 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
162 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
164 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
165 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
167 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
169 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
170 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
171 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
173 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
174 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
176 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
178 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
179 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
180 include ``set remote P-packet''.
182 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
184 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
185 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
186 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
188 * ``apropos'' command added.
190 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
191 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
192 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
196 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
197 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
198 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
199 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
200 enabled by configuring with:
202 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
204 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
206 * New native configurations
208 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
209 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
210 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
214 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
215 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
216 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
218 * OBSOLETE configurations
220 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
222 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
223 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
224 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
225 be permanently REMOVED.
229 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
230 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
231 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
232 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
233 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
234 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
235 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
240 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
242 * set extension-language
244 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
245 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
246 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
247 set extension-language .c c++
248 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
249 and their associated languages.
251 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
253 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
254 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
255 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
259 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
260 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
262 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
263 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
265 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
266 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
267 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
268 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
269 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
270 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
271 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
272 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
274 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
275 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
276 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
277 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
281 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
282 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
283 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
284 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
285 for xdb and dbx commands.
289 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
290 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
291 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
293 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
294 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
295 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
297 * Debugging across forks
299 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
304 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
305 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
306 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
308 * GDB remote protocol additions
310 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
311 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
312 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
313 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
315 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
316 full 64-bit address. The command
318 set remoteaddresssize 32
320 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
321 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
324 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
325 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
327 maint packet heythere
329 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
330 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
333 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
334 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
335 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
337 * Tracing can collect general expressions
339 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
340 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
341 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
343 * mask-address variable for Mips
345 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
346 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
347 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
349 * Higher serial baud rates
351 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
352 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
353 to achieve all of these rates.)
357 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
358 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
361 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
363 * New native configurations
365 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
366 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
367 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
368 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
369 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
370 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
371 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
375 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
376 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
377 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
378 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
379 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
380 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
381 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
382 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
383 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
384 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
385 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
387 * New debugging protocols
389 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
390 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
391 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
392 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
393 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
394 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
398 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
399 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
404 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
405 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
407 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
409 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
410 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
411 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
413 * Live range splitting
415 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
416 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
417 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
421 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
422 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
426 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
427 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
428 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
433 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
438 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
439 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
440 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
441 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
442 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
443 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
447 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
448 the symbol at the specified address.
452 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
453 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
454 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
455 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
456 file tracepoint.c for more details.
460 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
461 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
462 of most MIPS variants.
466 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
467 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
468 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
472 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
473 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
474 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
475 the possible architectures.
477 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
479 * New native configurations
481 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
482 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
483 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
484 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
485 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
486 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
490 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
491 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
492 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
493 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
494 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
496 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
500 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
501 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
502 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
503 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
504 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
508 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
510 * Windows 95/NT native
512 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
513 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
514 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
515 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
516 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
518 * dont-repeat command
520 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
521 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
522 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
523 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
525 * Send break instead of ^C
527 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
528 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
529 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
531 * Remote protocol timeout
533 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
534 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
535 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
537 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
539 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
540 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
541 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
542 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
543 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
545 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
546 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
547 automatically on hpux10.
549 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
551 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
553 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
555 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
556 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
557 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
558 every character. The default value is 1050.
560 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
562 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
563 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
564 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
565 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
566 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
567 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
569 * Speedups for remote debugging
571 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
572 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
573 and more efficient S-record downloading.
575 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
577 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
578 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
580 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
584 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
585 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
587 * Remote targets use caching
589 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
590 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
591 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
592 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
593 off' turns the the data cache off.
595 * Remote targets may have threads
597 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
598 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
599 gdb/remote.c for details.
603 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
604 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
605 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
606 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
607 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
608 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
609 sequence is something like
611 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
613 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
617 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
618 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
619 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
620 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
621 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
622 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
623 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
624 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
628 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
629 but does simplify configuration and building.
633 GDB now supports hpux10.
635 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
637 * New native configurations
639 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
640 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
641 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
642 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
646 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
647 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
648 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
649 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
652 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
654 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
655 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
656 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
657 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
658 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
660 * Arguments to user-defined commands
662 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
663 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
666 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
668 To execute the command use:
671 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
672 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
673 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
675 * New `if' and `while' commands
677 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
678 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
679 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
680 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
681 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
682 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
683 if the expression is zero.
685 * Fortran source language mode
687 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
688 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
689 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
690 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
693 * Better HPUX support
695 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
696 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
697 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
698 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
699 that behavior do the following before running the program:
705 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
706 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
712 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
713 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
716 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
717 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
719 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
721 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
722 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
723 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
724 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
725 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
726 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
728 * New DOS host serial code
730 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
731 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
734 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
736 * New "complete" command
738 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
739 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
741 * Trailing space optional in prompt
743 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
744 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
746 * Breakpoint hit counts
748 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
749 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
750 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
751 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
752 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
755 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
757 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
758 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
759 arrays actually contain only short strings.
761 * Shared library breakpoints
763 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
764 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
766 * Hardware watchpoints
768 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
769 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
771 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
775 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
776 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
778 * Improved Irix 5 support
780 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
782 * Improved HPPA support
784 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
786 * New native configurations
788 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
789 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
790 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
791 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
795 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
796 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
799 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
801 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
802 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
806 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
807 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
809 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
811 * Irix 5 is now supported
815 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
816 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
817 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
818 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
819 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
822 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
824 * User visible changes:
828 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
829 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
830 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
831 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
832 debugging info for the mips target).
834 * DEC Alpha native support
836 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
837 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
838 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
839 Alpha-specific notes.
841 * Preliminary thread implementation
843 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
845 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
847 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
848 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
851 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
853 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
854 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
855 call methods, ...etc.
857 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
859 * User visible changes:
861 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
862 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
863 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
864 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
866 Filename completion now works.
868 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
869 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
870 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
872 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
873 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
874 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
875 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
876 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
880 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
881 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
884 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
888 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
889 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
890 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
894 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
895 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
896 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
897 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
898 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
902 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
903 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
904 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
906 * New targets supported
908 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
909 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
910 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
911 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
912 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
914 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
915 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
916 GO32 memory extender.
918 * New remote protocols
920 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
922 * New source languages supported
924 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
925 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
926 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
929 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
931 * HP Precision Architecture supported
933 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
934 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
935 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
936 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
937 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
938 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
940 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
942 * Faster and better demangling
944 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
945 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
946 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
947 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
948 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
949 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
952 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
953 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
954 compiler does not actually implement.
956 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
958 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
959 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
960 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
961 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
962 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
963 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
966 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
967 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
969 * Improved configure script
971 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
972 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
973 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
974 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
976 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
977 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
978 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
979 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
980 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
981 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
983 * Documentation improvements
985 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
986 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
987 before submitting changes.
989 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
990 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
991 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
992 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
993 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
995 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
996 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
997 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
998 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
999 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1000 around this problem.
1004 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1005 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1006 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1009 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1010 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1012 * New native hosts supported
1014 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1015 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1017 * New targets supported
1019 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1021 * New file formats supported
1023 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1024 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1028 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1030 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1031 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1033 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1034 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1035 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1037 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1038 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1040 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1041 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1042 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1045 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1046 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1047 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1048 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1049 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1051 * Internal improvements
1053 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1054 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1056 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1057 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1058 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1059 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1060 shared code that handles any of them.
1062 * New command line options
1064 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1068 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1069 General Public License.
1071 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1073 * Host/native/target split
1075 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1076 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1077 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1078 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1079 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1081 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1082 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1083 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1084 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1085 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1086 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1087 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1089 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1090 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1091 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1093 * New hosts supported
1095 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1096 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1097 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1099 * New targets supported
1101 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1102 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1104 * New native hosts supported
1106 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1107 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1108 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1110 * New file formats supported
1112 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1113 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1114 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1118 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1119 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1120 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1122 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1124 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1125 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1126 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1127 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1131 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1132 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1133 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1135 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1139 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1140 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1143 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1144 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1146 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1147 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1148 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1149 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1150 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1151 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1153 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1154 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1155 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1156 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1160 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1161 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1162 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1163 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1164 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1166 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1167 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1168 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1169 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1173 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1174 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1175 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1176 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1177 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1178 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1179 each instruction being stepped through.
1181 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1182 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1184 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1185 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1186 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1187 processor with a serial port.
1191 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1192 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1193 supported, and what files each one uses.
1197 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1198 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1199 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1200 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1202 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1203 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1204 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1205 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1209 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1210 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1211 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1212 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1213 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1214 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1216 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1219 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1221 * Better support for C++ function names
1223 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1224 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1225 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1226 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1227 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1229 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1230 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1231 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1232 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1233 for the list of formats.
1235 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1237 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1238 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1239 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1240 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1241 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1242 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1245 * New 'maintenance' command
1247 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1248 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1249 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1251 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1252 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1253 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1254 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1255 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1256 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1258 The following commands are new:
1260 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1261 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1262 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1264 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1266 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1267 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1268 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1269 read after argv processing.
1271 * New hosts supported
1273 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1275 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1277 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1278 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1279 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1280 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1281 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1284 * New targets supported
1286 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1288 * More smarts about finding #include files
1290 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1291 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1292 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1293 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1294 the one that contains your sources.
1296 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1297 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1298 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1300 * Interesting infernals change
1302 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1303 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1304 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1305 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1307 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1309 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1310 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1311 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1313 See the ChangeLog for details.
1315 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1317 * New machines supported (host and target)
1319 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1321 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1323 * New malloc package
1325 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1326 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1327 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1328 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1329 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1330 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1334 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1335 'help info proc' for details.
1337 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1339 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1340 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1343 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1345 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1346 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1347 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1348 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1349 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1350 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1352 * Cross byte order fixes
1354 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1355 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1357 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1359 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1360 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1361 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1362 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1363 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1364 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1365 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1366 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1367 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1368 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1370 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1371 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1372 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1373 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1375 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1376 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1377 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1380 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1382 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1383 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1384 shared across multiple host platforms.
1386 * longjmp() handling
1388 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1389 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1390 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1391 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1395 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1396 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1401 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1402 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1403 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1405 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1407 * New machines supported (host and target)
1409 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1411 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1412 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1414 * New machines supported (target)
1416 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1420 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1421 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1422 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1424 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1425 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1426 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1427 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1428 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1431 * New features for SVR4
1433 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1434 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1435 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1437 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1438 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1439 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1441 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1442 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1444 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1446 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1447 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1448 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1449 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1450 same code linked statically.
1454 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1455 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1456 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1457 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1458 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1459 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1463 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1464 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1465 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1468 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1470 * New machines supported (host and target)
1472 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1473 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1474 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1476 * Almost SCO Unix support
1478 We had hoped to support:
1479 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1480 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1481 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1482 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1484 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1486 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1487 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1488 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1489 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1494 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1495 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1496 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1500 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1501 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1502 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1504 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1506 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1507 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1508 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1510 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1511 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1512 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1513 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1516 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1517 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1518 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1519 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1522 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1523 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1526 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1527 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1528 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1531 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1533 * Improved configuration
1535 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1536 Porting BFD is simpler.
1540 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1541 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1542 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1543 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1547 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1549 * New host supported (not target)
1551 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1554 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1556 * Multiple source language support
1558 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1559 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1560 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1561 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1562 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1563 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1567 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1568 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1569 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1570 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1572 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1573 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1574 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1576 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1577 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1581 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1582 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1583 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1584 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1587 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1589 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1590 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1591 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1592 examining core files.
1596 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1599 * New machines supported (host and target)
1601 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1602 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1603 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1605 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1607 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1609 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1611 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1612 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1613 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1615 * New remote interfaces
1621 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1625 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1627 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1628 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1629 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1630 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1631 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1632 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1633 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1634 stub on the target system.
1636 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1638 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1639 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1640 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1642 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1643 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1646 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1648 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1649 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1651 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1652 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1653 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1655 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1656 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1657 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1658 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1660 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1661 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1662 it is already running. Default is ON.
1664 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1665 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1666 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1667 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1670 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1671 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1672 or the value of the environment variable
1675 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1676 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1679 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1680 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1681 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1683 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1684 history expansion will be performed on
1685 command line input. The default is OFF.
1687 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1688 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1689 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1691 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1692 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1693 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1696 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1697 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1698 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1701 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1702 ``set width'' instead.
1704 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1705 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1706 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1707 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1709 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1712 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1715 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1718 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1721 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1723 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1724 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1725 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1729 * Support for Shared Libraries
1731 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1732 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1733 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1734 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1735 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1736 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1737 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1738 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1740 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1741 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1742 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1744 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1749 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1750 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1751 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1752 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1753 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1754 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1756 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1758 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1760 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1761 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1762 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1765 * C++ multiple inheritance
1767 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1770 * C++ exception handling
1772 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1773 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1774 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1777 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1778 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1779 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1781 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1782 current stack frame.
1785 * Minor command changes
1787 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1788 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1789 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1791 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1792 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1793 frames without printing.
1795 * New directory command
1797 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1798 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1799 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1800 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1801 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1803 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1805 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1808 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1809 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1810 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1811 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob