1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * New native configurations
8 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
9 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
10 MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
11 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
16 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
18 UltraSparc running Linux sparc64-*-linux*
20 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
22 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
23 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
24 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
25 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
26 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
28 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
29 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
30 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
31 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
32 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
33 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
34 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
35 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
37 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
38 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
40 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
41 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
42 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
45 * REMOVED configurations and files
47 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
50 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
54 * GDB has been converted to ANS/ISO C.
56 GDB's source code has been converted to ANS/ISO C. In particular, the
57 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
62 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
64 * The MI enabled by default.
66 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
67 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
68 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
69 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
70 which is now deprecated.
72 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
74 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
75 main features are supported:
77 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
79 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
82 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
84 - a Pascal expression parser.
86 However, some important features are not yet supported.
88 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
90 - there are some problems with boolean types;
92 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
93 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
95 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
97 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
99 * Changes in completion.
101 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
102 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
103 users expect at the shell prompt.
105 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
106 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
107 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
108 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
109 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
110 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
111 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
113 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
115 * New platform-independent commands:
117 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
118 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
119 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
121 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
123 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
125 Support for SSE registers was added.
127 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
129 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
131 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
132 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
135 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
137 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
138 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
139 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
140 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
141 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
144 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
145 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
146 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
148 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
150 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
151 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
153 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
154 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
157 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
158 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
159 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
160 a given linear address.
162 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
163 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
164 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
166 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
168 * Changes in documentation.
170 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
171 Documentation License.
173 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
176 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
178 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
181 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
182 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
183 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
185 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
187 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
188 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
189 contents of this file.
193 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
195 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
197 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
199 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
200 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
201 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
202 greater level of detail.
204 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
206 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
207 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
208 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
211 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
213 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
214 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
215 machines ``out of the box''.
217 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
218 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
219 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
220 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
221 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
223 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
224 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
225 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
226 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
227 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
229 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
230 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
233 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
236 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
237 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
238 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
239 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
241 * New native configurations
243 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
244 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
248 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
249 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
250 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
251 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
253 * OBSOLETE configurations
255 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
256 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
258 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
261 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
262 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
263 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
264 be permanently REMOVED.
266 * Gould support removed
268 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
270 * New features for SVR4
272 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
273 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
274 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
276 * Many C++ enhancements
278 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
279 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
281 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
283 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
284 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
285 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
286 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
288 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
289 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
291 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
293 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
294 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
295 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
297 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
298 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
300 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
302 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
303 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
304 include ``set remote P-packet''.
306 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
308 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
309 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
310 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
312 * ``apropos'' command added.
314 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
315 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
316 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
320 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
321 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
322 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
323 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
324 enabled by configuring with:
326 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
328 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
330 * New native configurations
332 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
333 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
334 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
338 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
339 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
340 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
342 * OBSOLETE configurations
344 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
346 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
347 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
348 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
349 be permanently REMOVED.
353 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
354 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
355 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
356 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
357 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
358 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
359 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
364 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
366 * set extension-language
368 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
369 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
370 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
371 set extension-language .c c++
372 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
373 and their associated languages.
375 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
377 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
378 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
379 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
383 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
384 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
386 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
387 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
389 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
390 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
391 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
392 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
393 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
394 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
395 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
396 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
398 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
399 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
400 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
401 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
405 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
406 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
407 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
408 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
409 for xdb and dbx commands.
413 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
414 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
415 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
417 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
418 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
419 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
421 * Debugging across forks
423 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
428 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
429 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
430 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
432 * GDB remote protocol additions
434 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
435 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
436 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
437 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
439 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
440 full 64-bit address. The command
442 set remoteaddresssize 32
444 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
445 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
448 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
449 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
451 maint packet heythere
453 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
454 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
457 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
458 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
459 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
461 * Tracing can collect general expressions
463 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
464 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
465 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
467 * mask-address variable for Mips
469 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
470 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
471 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
473 * Higher serial baud rates
475 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
476 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
477 to achieve all of these rates.)
481 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
482 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
485 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
487 * New native configurations
489 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
490 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
491 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
492 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
493 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
494 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
495 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
499 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
500 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
501 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
502 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
503 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
504 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
505 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
506 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
507 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
508 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
509 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
511 * New debugging protocols
513 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
514 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
515 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
516 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
517 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
518 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
522 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
523 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
528 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
529 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
531 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
533 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
534 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
535 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
537 * Live range splitting
539 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
540 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
541 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
545 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
546 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
550 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
551 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
552 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
557 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
562 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
563 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
564 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
565 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
566 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
567 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
571 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
572 the symbol at the specified address.
576 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
577 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
578 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
579 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
580 file tracepoint.c for more details.
584 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
585 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
586 of most MIPS variants.
590 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
591 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
592 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
596 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
597 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
598 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
599 the possible architectures.
601 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
603 * New native configurations
605 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
606 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
607 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
608 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
609 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
610 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
614 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
615 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
616 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
617 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
618 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
620 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
624 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
625 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
626 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
627 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
628 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
632 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
634 * Windows 95/NT native
636 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
637 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
638 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
639 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
640 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
642 * dont-repeat command
644 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
645 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
646 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
647 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
649 * Send break instead of ^C
651 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
652 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
653 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
655 * Remote protocol timeout
657 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
658 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
659 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
661 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
663 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
664 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
665 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
666 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
667 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
669 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
670 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
671 automatically on hpux10.
673 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
675 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
677 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
679 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
680 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
681 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
682 every character. The default value is 1050.
684 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
686 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
687 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
688 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
689 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
690 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
691 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
693 * Speedups for remote debugging
695 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
696 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
697 and more efficient S-record downloading.
699 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
701 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
702 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
704 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
708 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
709 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
711 * Remote targets use caching
713 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
714 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
715 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
716 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
717 off' turns the the data cache off.
719 * Remote targets may have threads
721 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
722 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
723 gdb/remote.c for details.
727 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
728 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
729 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
730 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
731 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
732 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
733 sequence is something like
735 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
737 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
741 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
742 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
743 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
744 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
745 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
746 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
747 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
748 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
752 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
753 but does simplify configuration and building.
757 GDB now supports hpux10.
759 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
761 * New native configurations
763 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
764 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
765 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
766 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
770 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
771 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
772 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
773 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
776 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
778 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
779 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
780 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
781 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
782 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
784 * Arguments to user-defined commands
786 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
787 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
790 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
792 To execute the command use:
795 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
796 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
797 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
799 * New `if' and `while' commands
801 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
802 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
803 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
804 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
805 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
806 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
807 if the expression is zero.
809 * Fortran source language mode
811 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
812 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
813 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
814 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
817 * Better HPUX support
819 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
820 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
821 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
822 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
823 that behavior do the following before running the program:
829 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
830 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
836 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
837 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
840 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
841 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
843 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
845 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
846 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
847 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
848 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
849 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
850 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
852 * New DOS host serial code
854 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
855 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
858 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
860 * New "complete" command
862 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
863 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
865 * Trailing space optional in prompt
867 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
868 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
870 * Breakpoint hit counts
872 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
873 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
874 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
875 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
876 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
879 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
881 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
882 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
883 arrays actually contain only short strings.
885 * Shared library breakpoints
887 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
888 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
890 * Hardware watchpoints
892 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
893 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
895 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
899 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
900 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
902 * Improved Irix 5 support
904 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
906 * Improved HPPA support
908 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
910 * New native configurations
912 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
913 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
914 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
915 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
919 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
920 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
923 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
925 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
926 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
930 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
931 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
933 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
935 * Irix 5 is now supported
939 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
940 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
941 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
942 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
943 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
946 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
948 * User visible changes:
952 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
953 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
954 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
955 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
956 debugging info for the mips target).
958 * DEC Alpha native support
960 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
961 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
962 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
963 Alpha-specific notes.
965 * Preliminary thread implementation
967 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
969 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
971 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
972 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
975 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
977 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
978 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
979 call methods, ...etc.
981 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
983 * User visible changes:
985 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
986 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
987 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
988 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
990 Filename completion now works.
992 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
993 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
994 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
996 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
997 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
998 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
999 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1000 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1004 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1005 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1008 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1012 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1013 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1014 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1018 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1019 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1020 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1021 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1022 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1026 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1027 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1028 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1030 * New targets supported
1032 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1033 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1034 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1035 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1036 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1038 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1039 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1040 GO32 memory extender.
1042 * New remote protocols
1044 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1046 * New source languages supported
1048 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1049 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1050 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1053 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1055 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1057 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1058 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1059 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1060 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1061 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1062 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1064 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1066 * Faster and better demangling
1068 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1069 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1070 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1071 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1072 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1073 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1076 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1077 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1078 compiler does not actually implement.
1080 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1082 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1083 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1084 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1085 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1086 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1087 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1090 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1091 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1093 * Improved configure script
1095 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1096 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1097 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1098 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1100 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1101 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1102 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1103 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1104 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1105 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1107 * Documentation improvements
1109 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1110 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1111 before submitting changes.
1113 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1114 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1115 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1116 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1117 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1119 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1120 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1121 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1122 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1123 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1124 around this problem.
1128 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1129 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1130 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1133 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1134 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1136 * New native hosts supported
1138 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1139 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1141 * New targets supported
1143 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1145 * New file formats supported
1147 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1148 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1152 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1154 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1155 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1157 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1158 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1159 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1161 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1162 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1164 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1165 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1166 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1169 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1170 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1171 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1172 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1173 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1175 * Internal improvements
1177 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1178 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1180 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1181 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1182 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1183 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1184 shared code that handles any of them.
1186 * New command line options
1188 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1192 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1193 General Public License.
1195 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1197 * Host/native/target split
1199 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1200 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1201 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1202 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1203 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1205 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1206 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1207 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1208 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1209 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1210 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1211 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1213 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1214 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1215 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1217 * New hosts supported
1219 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1220 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1221 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1223 * New targets supported
1225 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1226 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1228 * New native hosts supported
1230 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1231 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1232 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1234 * New file formats supported
1236 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1237 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1238 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1242 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1243 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1244 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1246 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1248 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1249 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1250 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1251 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1255 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1256 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1257 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1259 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1263 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1264 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1267 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1268 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1270 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1271 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1272 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1273 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1274 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1275 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1277 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1278 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1279 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1280 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1284 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1285 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1286 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1287 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1288 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1290 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1291 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1292 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1293 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1297 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1298 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1299 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1300 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1301 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1302 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1303 each instruction being stepped through.
1305 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1306 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1308 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1309 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1310 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1311 processor with a serial port.
1315 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1316 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1317 supported, and what files each one uses.
1321 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1322 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1323 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1324 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1326 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1327 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1328 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1329 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1333 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1334 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1335 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1336 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1337 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1338 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1340 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1343 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1345 * Better support for C++ function names
1347 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1348 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1349 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1350 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1351 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1353 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1354 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1355 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1356 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1357 for the list of formats.
1359 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1361 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1362 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1363 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1364 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1365 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1366 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1369 * New 'maintenance' command
1371 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1372 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1373 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1375 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1376 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1377 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1378 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1379 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1380 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1382 The following commands are new:
1384 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1385 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1386 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1388 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1390 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1391 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1392 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1393 read after argv processing.
1395 * New hosts supported
1397 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1399 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1401 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1402 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1403 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1404 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1405 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1408 * New targets supported
1410 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1412 * More smarts about finding #include files
1414 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1415 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1416 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1417 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1418 the one that contains your sources.
1420 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1421 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1422 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1424 * Interesting infernals change
1426 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1427 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1428 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1429 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1431 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1433 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1434 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1435 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1437 See the ChangeLog for details.
1439 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1441 * New machines supported (host and target)
1443 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1445 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1447 * New malloc package
1449 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1450 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1451 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1452 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1453 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1454 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1458 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1459 'help info proc' for details.
1461 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1463 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1464 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1467 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1469 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1470 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1471 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1472 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1473 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1474 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1476 * Cross byte order fixes
1478 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1479 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1481 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1483 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1484 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1485 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1486 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1487 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1488 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1489 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1490 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1491 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1492 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1494 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1495 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1496 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1497 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1499 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1500 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1501 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1504 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1506 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1507 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1508 shared across multiple host platforms.
1510 * longjmp() handling
1512 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1513 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1514 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1515 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1519 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1520 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1525 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1526 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1527 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1529 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1531 * New machines supported (host and target)
1533 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1535 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1536 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1538 * New machines supported (target)
1540 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1544 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1545 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1546 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1548 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1549 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1550 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1551 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1552 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1555 * New features for SVR4
1557 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1558 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1559 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1561 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1562 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1563 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1565 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1566 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1568 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1570 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1571 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1572 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1573 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1574 same code linked statically.
1578 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1579 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1580 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1581 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1582 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1583 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1587 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1588 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1589 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1592 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1594 * New machines supported (host and target)
1596 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1597 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1598 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1600 * Almost SCO Unix support
1602 We had hoped to support:
1603 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1604 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1605 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1606 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1608 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1610 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1611 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1612 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1613 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1618 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1619 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1620 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1624 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1625 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1626 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1628 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1630 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1631 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1632 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1634 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1635 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1636 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1637 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1640 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1641 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1642 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1643 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1646 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1647 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1650 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1651 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1652 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1655 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1657 * Improved configuration
1659 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1660 Porting BFD is simpler.
1664 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1665 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1666 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1667 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1671 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1673 * New host supported (not target)
1675 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1678 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1680 * Multiple source language support
1682 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1683 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1684 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1685 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1686 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1687 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1691 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1692 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1693 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1694 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1696 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1697 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1698 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1700 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1701 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1705 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1706 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1707 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1708 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1711 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1713 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1714 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1715 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1716 examining core files.
1720 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1723 * New machines supported (host and target)
1725 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1726 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1727 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1729 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1731 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1733 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1735 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1736 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1737 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1739 * New remote interfaces
1745 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1749 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1751 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1752 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1753 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1754 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1755 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1756 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1757 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1758 stub on the target system.
1760 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1762 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1763 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1764 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1766 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1767 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1770 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1772 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1773 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1775 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1776 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1777 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1779 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1780 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1781 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1782 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1784 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1785 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1786 it is already running. Default is ON.
1788 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1789 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1790 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1791 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1794 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1795 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1796 or the value of the environment variable
1799 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1800 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1803 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1804 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1805 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1807 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1808 history expansion will be performed on
1809 command line input. The default is OFF.
1811 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1812 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1813 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1815 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1816 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1817 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1820 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1821 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1822 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1825 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1826 ``set width'' instead.
1828 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1829 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1830 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1831 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1833 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1836 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1839 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1842 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1845 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1847 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1848 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1849 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1853 * Support for Shared Libraries
1855 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1856 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1857 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1858 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1859 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1860 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1861 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1862 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1864 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1865 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1866 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1868 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1873 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1874 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1875 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1876 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1877 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1878 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1880 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1882 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1884 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1885 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1886 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1889 * C++ multiple inheritance
1891 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1894 * C++ exception handling
1896 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1897 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1898 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1901 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1902 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1903 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1905 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1906 current stack frame.
1909 * Minor command changes
1911 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1912 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1913 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1915 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1916 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1917 frames without printing.
1919 * New directory command
1921 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1922 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1923 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1924 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1925 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1927 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1929 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1932 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1933 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1934 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1935 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob