1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.3
6 * New native configurations
8 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
10 * Deprecated commands removed
12 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
16 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
17 othernames set arm disassembler
18 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
19 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
20 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
23 * New BSD user-level threads support
25 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
26 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
29 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
30 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
31 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
33 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
34 are not yet supported.
36 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
37 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
39 * REMOVED configurations and files
41 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
42 Renesas H8/300S h8300*-*-*
43 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
44 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
45 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
48 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
50 * New command line option
52 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
55 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
57 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
58 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
59 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
60 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
61 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
63 * Internationalization
65 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
66 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
67 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
71 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
72 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
73 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
75 * New native configurations
77 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
81 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
82 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
84 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
86 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
87 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
88 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
91 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
92 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
93 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
105 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
106 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
108 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
110 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
111 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
112 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
122 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
124 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
126 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
127 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
130 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
132 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
133 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
134 IRIX long double values).
138 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
139 command. This problem has been fixed.
141 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
143 * Fix for ``many threads''
145 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
146 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
149 ptrace: No such process.
150 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
152 This problem has been fixed.
154 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
156 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
159 * New ``start'' command.
161 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
163 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
165 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
166 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
167 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
169 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
170 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
171 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
172 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
173 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
174 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
175 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
176 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
177 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
179 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
181 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
182 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
183 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
184 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
185 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
187 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
188 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
189 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
191 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
193 * New native configurations
195 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
196 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
197 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
198 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
199 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
200 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
201 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
203 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
205 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
206 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
207 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
208 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
209 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
210 work, was also included.
212 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
213 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
223 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
224 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
226 * REMOVED configurations and files
228 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
229 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
230 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
231 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
232 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
233 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
234 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
235 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
236 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
238 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
240 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
242 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
244 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
245 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
246 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
247 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
250 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
252 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
253 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
254 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
255 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
256 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
257 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
260 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
262 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
264 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
265 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
266 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
268 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
270 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
271 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
273 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
275 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
276 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
277 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
279 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
281 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
282 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
284 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
286 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
287 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
288 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
290 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
292 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
293 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
294 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
296 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
298 * Removed --with-mmalloc
300 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
301 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
303 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
305 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
306 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
307 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
308 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
310 * Revised SPARC target
312 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
313 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
314 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
315 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
316 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
320 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
321 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
322 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
325 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
327 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
328 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
331 * C++ nested types and namespaces
333 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
334 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
335 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
336 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
337 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
338 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
339 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
340 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
341 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
343 * New native configurations
345 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
346 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
347 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
348 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
349 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
351 * New debugging protocols
353 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
355 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
357 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
358 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
359 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
361 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
363 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
364 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
365 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
368 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
369 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
370 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
371 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
372 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
373 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
374 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
375 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
376 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
378 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
380 * REMOVED configurations and files
382 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
383 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
384 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
385 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
386 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
387 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
388 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
389 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
390 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
391 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
392 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
393 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
394 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
395 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
396 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
397 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
398 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
400 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
404 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
407 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
409 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
410 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
411 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
414 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
415 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
420 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
421 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
422 remote protocol documentation for details.
424 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
426 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
427 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
428 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
431 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
433 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
434 per-thread variables.
436 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
438 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
439 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
441 * Separate debug info.
443 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
444 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
445 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
446 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
447 and optional debug files.
449 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
451 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
452 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
455 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
456 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
460 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
461 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
462 considered "useable".
464 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
466 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
467 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
470 * GDB supports logging output to a file
472 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
473 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
475 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
477 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
478 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
481 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
483 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
484 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
488 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
489 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
490 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
491 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
492 data, for more informative profiling results.
494 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
496 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
497 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
498 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
500 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
503 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
504 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
505 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
506 in a subsequent -var-update.
508 * New native configurations.
510 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
512 * Multi-arched targets.
514 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
515 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
517 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
519 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
520 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
521 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
524 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
525 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
526 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
527 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
528 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
529 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
530 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
531 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
532 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
533 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
534 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
535 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
537 * REMOVED configurations and files
540 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
541 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
542 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
543 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
544 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
545 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
547 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
548 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
549 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
550 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
551 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
552 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
554 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
556 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
557 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
558 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
559 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
560 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
562 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
564 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
566 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
567 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
568 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
569 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
570 shared libs like mad''.
572 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
574 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
575 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
576 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
577 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
579 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
581 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
582 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
585 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
586 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
588 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
589 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
591 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
592 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
593 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
594 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
596 * Multi-arched targets.
598 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
599 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
601 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
602 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
603 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
607 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
610 * New native configurations
612 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
613 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
614 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
615 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
617 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
619 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
620 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
621 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
624 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
625 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
626 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
627 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
628 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
629 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
630 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
631 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
632 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
633 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
635 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
636 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
640 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
642 * REMOVED configurations and files
644 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
645 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
646 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
647 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
648 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
650 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
652 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
654 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
655 commands. The default is 1024.
657 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
659 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
661 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
663 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
664 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
665 from a file into memory (restore).
667 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
669 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
670 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
671 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
673 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
681 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
682 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
683 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
685 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
686 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
687 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
689 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
690 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
691 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
693 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
694 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
695 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
697 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
699 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
701 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
702 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
703 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
704 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
705 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
706 (notably embedded) targets.
708 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
710 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
711 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
712 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
713 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
715 * New command line option
717 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
719 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
721 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
722 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
723 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
724 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
725 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
726 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
727 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
728 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
729 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
730 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
732 * Changes in ARM configurations.
734 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
735 configuration is fully multi-arch.
737 * New native configurations
739 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
740 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
741 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
742 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
746 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
748 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
750 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
751 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
752 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
755 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
756 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
757 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
758 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
759 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
761 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
763 * REMOVED configurations and files
765 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
767 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
768 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
769 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
770 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
771 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
772 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
773 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
774 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
775 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
776 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
777 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
779 * Changes to command line processing
781 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
782 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
784 * Changes to key bindings
786 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
788 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
790 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
792 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
795 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
797 Numerous documentation fixes.
799 Numerous testsuite fixes.
801 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
803 * New native configurations
805 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
806 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
807 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
808 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
810 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
814 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
816 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
818 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
820 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
821 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
822 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
823 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
824 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
826 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
827 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
828 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
829 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
830 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
831 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
832 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
833 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
835 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
836 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
838 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
839 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
840 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
843 * REMOVED configurations and files
845 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
846 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
848 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
852 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
854 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
855 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
860 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
862 * The MI enabled by default.
864 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
865 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
866 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
867 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
868 which is now deprecated.
870 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
872 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
873 main features are supported:
875 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
877 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
880 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
882 - a Pascal expression parser.
884 However, some important features are not yet supported.
886 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
888 - there are some problems with boolean types;
890 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
891 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
893 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
895 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
897 * Changes in completion.
899 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
900 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
901 users expect at the shell prompt.
903 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
904 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
905 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
906 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
907 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
908 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
909 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
911 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
913 * New platform-independent commands:
915 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
916 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
917 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
919 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
921 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
922 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
923 many threads as your system allows you to have.
925 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
927 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
928 multi-threaded programs though.
930 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
932 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
934 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
935 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
938 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
940 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
941 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
942 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
943 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
944 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
947 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
948 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
949 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
951 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
953 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
954 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
956 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
957 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
960 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
961 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
962 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
963 a given linear address.
965 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
966 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
967 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
969 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
971 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
973 * Changes in documentation.
975 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
976 Documentation License.
978 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
981 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
983 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
986 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
987 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
988 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
990 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
992 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
993 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
994 contents of this file.
998 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1000 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1002 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1004 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1005 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1006 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1007 greater level of detail.
1009 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1011 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1012 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1013 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1016 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1018 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1019 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1020 machines ``out of the box''.
1022 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1023 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1024 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1025 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1026 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1028 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1029 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1030 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1031 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1032 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1034 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1035 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1038 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1041 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1042 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1043 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1044 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1046 * New native configurations
1048 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1049 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1053 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1054 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1055 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1056 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1058 * OBSOLETE configurations
1060 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1061 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1063 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1066 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1067 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1068 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1069 be permanently REMOVED.
1071 * Gould support removed
1073 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1075 * New features for SVR4
1077 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1078 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1079 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1081 * Many C++ enhancements
1083 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1084 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1086 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1088 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1089 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1090 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1091 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1093 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1094 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1096 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1098 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1099 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1100 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1102 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1103 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1105 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1107 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1108 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1109 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1111 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1113 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1114 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1115 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1117 * ``apropos'' command added.
1119 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1120 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1121 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1125 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1126 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1127 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1128 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1129 enabled by configuring with:
1131 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1133 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1135 * New native configurations
1137 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1138 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1139 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1143 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1144 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1145 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1147 * OBSOLETE configurations
1149 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1151 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1152 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1153 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1154 be permanently REMOVED.
1158 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1159 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1160 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1161 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1162 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1163 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1164 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1169 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1171 * set extension-language
1173 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1174 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1175 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1176 set extension-language .c c++
1177 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1178 and their associated languages.
1180 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1182 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1183 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1184 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1188 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1189 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1191 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1192 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1194 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1195 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1196 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1197 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1198 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1199 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1200 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1201 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1203 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1204 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1205 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1206 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1210 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1211 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1212 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1213 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1214 for xdb and dbx commands.
1218 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1219 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1220 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1222 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1223 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1224 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1226 * Debugging across forks
1228 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1233 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1234 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1235 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1237 * GDB remote protocol additions
1239 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1240 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1241 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1242 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1244 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1245 full 64-bit address. The command
1247 set remoteaddresssize 32
1249 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1250 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1253 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1254 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1256 maint packet heythere
1258 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1259 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1262 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1263 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1264 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1266 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1268 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1269 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1270 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1272 * mask-address variable for Mips
1274 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1275 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1276 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1278 * Higher serial baud rates
1280 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1281 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1282 to achieve all of these rates.)
1286 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1287 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1290 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1292 * New native configurations
1294 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1295 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1296 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1297 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1298 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1299 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1300 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1304 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1305 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1306 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1307 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1308 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1309 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1310 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1311 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1312 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1313 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1314 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1316 * New debugging protocols
1318 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1319 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1320 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1321 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1322 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1323 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1327 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1328 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1333 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1334 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1336 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1338 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1339 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1340 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1342 * Live range splitting
1344 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1345 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1346 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1350 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1351 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1355 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1356 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1357 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1362 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1367 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1368 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1369 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1370 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1371 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1372 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1376 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1377 the symbol at the specified address.
1381 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1382 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1383 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1384 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1385 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1389 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1390 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1391 of most MIPS variants.
1395 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1396 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1397 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1401 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1402 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1403 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1404 the possible architectures.
1406 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1408 * New native configurations
1410 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1411 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1412 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1413 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1414 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1415 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1419 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1420 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1421 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1422 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1423 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1425 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1429 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1430 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1431 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1432 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1433 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1437 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1439 * Windows 95/NT native
1441 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1442 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1443 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1444 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1445 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1447 * dont-repeat command
1449 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1450 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1451 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1452 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1454 * Send break instead of ^C
1456 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1457 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1458 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1460 * Remote protocol timeout
1462 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1463 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1464 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1466 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1468 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1469 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1470 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1471 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1472 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1474 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1475 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1476 automatically on hpux10.
1478 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1480 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1482 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1484 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1485 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1486 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1487 every character. The default value is 1050.
1489 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1491 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1492 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1493 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1494 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1495 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1496 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1498 * Speedups for remote debugging
1500 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1501 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1502 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1504 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1506 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1507 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1509 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1511 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1513 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1514 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1516 * Remote targets use caching
1518 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1519 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1520 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1521 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1522 off' turns the the data cache off.
1524 * Remote targets may have threads
1526 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1527 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1528 gdb/remote.c for details.
1532 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1533 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1534 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1535 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1536 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1537 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1538 sequence is something like
1540 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1542 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1546 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1547 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1548 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1549 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1550 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1551 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1552 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1553 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1557 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1558 but does simplify configuration and building.
1562 GDB now supports hpux10.
1564 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1566 * New native configurations
1568 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1569 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1570 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1571 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1575 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1576 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1577 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1578 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1581 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1583 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1584 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1585 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1586 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1587 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1589 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1591 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1592 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1595 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1597 To execute the command use:
1600 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1601 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1602 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1604 * New `if' and `while' commands
1606 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1607 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1608 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1609 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1610 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1611 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1612 if the expression is zero.
1614 * Fortran source language mode
1616 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1617 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1618 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1619 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1622 * Better HPUX support
1624 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1625 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1626 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1627 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1628 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1634 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1635 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1641 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1642 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1645 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1646 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1648 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1650 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1651 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1652 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1653 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1654 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1655 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1657 * New DOS host serial code
1659 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1660 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1663 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1665 * New "complete" command
1667 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1668 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1670 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1672 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1673 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1675 * Breakpoint hit counts
1677 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1678 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1679 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1680 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1681 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1684 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1686 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1687 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1688 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1690 * Shared library breakpoints
1692 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1693 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1695 * Hardware watchpoints
1697 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1698 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1700 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1704 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1705 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1707 * Improved Irix 5 support
1709 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1711 * Improved HPPA support
1713 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1715 * New native configurations
1717 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1718 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1719 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1720 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1724 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1725 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1728 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1730 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1731 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1735 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1736 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1738 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1740 * Irix 5 is now supported
1744 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1745 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1746 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1747 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1748 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1751 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1753 * User visible changes:
1757 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1758 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1759 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1760 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1761 debugging info for the mips target).
1763 * DEC Alpha native support
1765 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1766 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1767 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1768 Alpha-specific notes.
1770 * Preliminary thread implementation
1772 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1774 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1776 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1777 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1780 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1782 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1783 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1784 call methods, ...etc.
1786 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1788 * User visible changes:
1790 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1791 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1792 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1793 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1795 Filename completion now works.
1797 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1798 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1799 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1801 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1802 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1803 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1804 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1805 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1809 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1810 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1813 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1817 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1818 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1819 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1823 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1824 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1825 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1826 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1827 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1831 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1832 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1833 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1835 * New targets supported
1837 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1838 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1839 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1840 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1841 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1843 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1844 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1845 GO32 memory extender.
1847 * New remote protocols
1849 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1851 * New source languages supported
1853 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1854 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1855 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1858 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1860 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1862 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1863 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1864 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1865 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1866 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1867 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1869 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1871 * Faster and better demangling
1873 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1874 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1875 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1876 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1877 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1878 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1881 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1882 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1883 compiler does not actually implement.
1885 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1887 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1888 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1889 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1890 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1891 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1892 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1895 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1896 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1898 * Improved configure script
1900 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1901 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1902 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1903 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1905 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1906 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1907 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1908 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1909 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1910 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1912 * Documentation improvements
1914 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1915 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1916 before submitting changes.
1918 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1919 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1920 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1921 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1922 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1924 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1925 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1926 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1927 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1928 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1929 around this problem.
1933 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1934 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1935 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1938 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1939 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1941 * New native hosts supported
1943 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1944 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1946 * New targets supported
1948 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1950 * New file formats supported
1952 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1953 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1957 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1959 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1960 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1962 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1963 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1964 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1966 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1967 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1969 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1970 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1971 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1974 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1975 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1976 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1977 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1978 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1980 * Internal improvements
1982 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1983 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1985 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1986 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1987 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1988 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1989 shared code that handles any of them.
1991 * New command line options
1993 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1997 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1998 General Public License.
2000 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2002 * Host/native/target split
2004 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2005 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2006 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2007 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2008 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2010 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2011 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2012 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2013 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2014 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2015 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2016 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2018 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2019 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2020 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2022 * New hosts supported
2024 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2025 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2026 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2028 * New targets supported
2030 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2031 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2033 * New native hosts supported
2035 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2036 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2037 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2039 * New file formats supported
2041 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2042 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2043 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2047 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2048 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2049 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2051 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2053 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2054 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2055 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2056 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2060 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2061 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2062 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2064 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2068 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2069 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2072 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2073 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2075 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2076 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2077 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2078 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2079 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2080 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2082 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2083 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2084 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2085 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2089 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2090 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2091 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2092 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2093 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2095 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2096 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2097 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2098 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2102 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2103 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2104 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2105 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2106 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2107 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2108 each instruction being stepped through.
2110 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2111 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2113 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2114 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2115 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2116 processor with a serial port.
2120 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2121 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2122 supported, and what files each one uses.
2126 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2127 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2128 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2129 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2131 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2132 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2133 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2134 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2138 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2139 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2140 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2141 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2142 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2143 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2145 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2148 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2150 * Better support for C++ function names
2152 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2153 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2154 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2155 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2156 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2158 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2159 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2160 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2161 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2162 for the list of formats.
2164 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2166 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2167 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2168 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2169 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2170 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2171 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2174 * New 'maintenance' command
2176 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2177 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2178 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2180 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2181 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2182 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2183 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2184 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2185 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2187 The following commands are new:
2189 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2190 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2191 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2193 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2195 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2196 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2197 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2198 read after argv processing.
2200 * New hosts supported
2202 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2204 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2206 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2207 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2208 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2209 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2210 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2213 * New targets supported
2215 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2217 * More smarts about finding #include files
2219 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2220 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2221 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2222 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2223 the one that contains your sources.
2225 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2226 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2227 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2229 * Interesting infernals change
2231 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2232 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2233 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2234 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2236 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2238 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2239 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2240 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2242 See the ChangeLog for details.
2244 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2246 * New machines supported (host and target)
2248 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2250 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2252 * New malloc package
2254 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2255 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2256 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2257 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2258 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2259 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2263 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2264 'help info proc' for details.
2266 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2268 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2269 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2272 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2274 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2275 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2276 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2277 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2278 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2279 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2281 * Cross byte order fixes
2283 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2284 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2286 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2288 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2289 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2290 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2291 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2292 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2293 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2294 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2295 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2296 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2297 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2299 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2300 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2301 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2302 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2304 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2305 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2306 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2309 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2311 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2312 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2313 shared across multiple host platforms.
2315 * longjmp() handling
2317 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2318 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2319 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2320 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2324 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2325 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2330 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2331 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2332 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2334 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2336 * New machines supported (host and target)
2338 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2340 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2341 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2343 * New machines supported (target)
2345 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2349 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2350 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2351 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2353 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2354 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2355 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2356 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2357 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2360 * New features for SVR4
2362 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2363 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2364 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2366 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2367 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2368 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2370 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2371 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2373 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2375 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2376 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2377 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2378 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2379 same code linked statically.
2383 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2384 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2385 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2386 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2387 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2388 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2392 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2393 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2394 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2397 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2399 * New machines supported (host and target)
2401 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2402 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2403 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2405 * Almost SCO Unix support
2407 We had hoped to support:
2408 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2409 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2410 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2411 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2413 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2415 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2416 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2417 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2418 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2423 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2424 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2425 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2429 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2430 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2431 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2433 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2435 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2436 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2437 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2439 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2440 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2441 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2442 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2445 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2446 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2447 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2448 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2451 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2452 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2455 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2456 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2457 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2460 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2462 * Improved configuration
2464 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2465 Porting BFD is simpler.
2469 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2470 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2471 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2472 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2476 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2478 * New host supported (not target)
2480 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2483 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2485 * Multiple source language support
2487 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2488 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2489 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2490 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2491 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2492 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2496 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2497 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2498 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2499 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2501 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2502 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2503 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2505 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2506 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2510 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2511 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2512 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2513 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2516 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2518 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2519 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2520 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2521 examining core files.
2525 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2528 * New machines supported (host and target)
2530 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2531 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2532 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2534 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2536 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2538 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2540 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2541 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2542 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2544 * New remote interfaces
2550 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2554 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2556 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2557 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2558 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2559 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2560 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2561 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2562 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2563 stub on the target system.
2565 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2567 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2568 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2569 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2571 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2572 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2575 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2577 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2578 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2580 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2581 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2582 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2584 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2585 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2586 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2587 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2589 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2590 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2591 it is already running. Default is ON.
2593 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2594 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2595 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2596 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2599 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2600 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2601 or the value of the environment variable
2604 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2605 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2608 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2609 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2610 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2612 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2613 history expansion will be performed on
2614 command line input. The default is OFF.
2616 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2617 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2618 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2620 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2621 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2622 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2625 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2626 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2627 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2630 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2631 ``set width'' instead.
2633 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2634 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2635 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2636 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2638 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2641 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2644 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2647 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2650 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2652 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2653 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2654 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2658 * Support for Shared Libraries
2660 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2661 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2662 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2663 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2664 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2665 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2666 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2667 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2669 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2670 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2671 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2673 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2678 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2679 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2680 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2681 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2682 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2683 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2685 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2687 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2689 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2690 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2691 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2694 * C++ multiple inheritance
2696 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2699 * C++ exception handling
2701 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2702 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2703 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2706 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2707 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2708 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2710 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2711 current stack frame.
2714 * Minor command changes
2716 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2717 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2718 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2720 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2721 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2722 frames without printing.
2724 * New directory command
2726 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2727 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2728 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2729 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2730 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2732 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2734 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2737 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2738 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2739 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2740 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob