1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB-4.15:
6 * New native configurations
8 Windows 95, Windows NT i[345]86-*-win32
12 ARM via RDP protocol arm-*-*
13 PowerPC via PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
14 PowerPC simulator powerpc{,le}-*-eabi if building with GCC
16 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
20 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
21 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
23 * Remote targets use caching
25 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
26 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
27 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
28 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
29 off' turns the the data cache off.
31 * Remote targets may have threads
33 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
34 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
35 gdb/remote.c for details.
39 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
40 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
41 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
42 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
43 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
44 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
45 sequence is something like
47 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
49 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
53 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
54 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
55 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
56 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
57 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
58 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
59 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
60 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
64 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
65 but does simplify configuration and building.
69 GDB now supports hpux10.
71 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
73 * New native configurations
75 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
76 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
77 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
78 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
82 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
83 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
84 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
85 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
88 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
90 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
91 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
92 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
93 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
94 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
96 * Arguments to user-defined commands
98 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
99 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
102 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
104 To execute the command use:
107 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
108 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
109 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
111 * New `if' and `while' commands
113 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
114 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
115 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
116 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
117 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
118 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
119 if the expression is zero.
121 * Fortran source language mode
123 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
124 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
125 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
126 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
129 * Better HPUX support
131 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
132 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
133 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
134 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
135 that behavior do the following before running the program:
141 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
142 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
148 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
149 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
152 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
153 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
155 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
157 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
158 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
159 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
160 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
161 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
162 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
164 * New DOS host serial code
166 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
167 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
170 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
172 * New "complete" command
174 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
175 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
177 * Trailing space optional in prompt
179 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
180 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
182 * Breakpoint hit counts
184 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
185 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
186 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
187 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
188 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
191 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
193 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
194 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
195 arrays actually contain only short strings.
197 * Shared library breakpoints
199 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
200 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
202 * Hardware watchpoints
204 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
205 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
207 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
211 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
212 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
214 * Improved Irix 5 support
216 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
218 * Improved HPPA support
220 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
222 * New native configurations
224 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
225 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
226 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
227 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
231 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
232 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
235 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
237 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
238 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
242 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
243 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
245 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
247 * Irix 5 is now supported
251 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
252 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
253 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
254 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
255 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
258 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
260 * User visible changes:
264 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
265 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
266 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
267 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
268 debugging info for the mips target).
270 * DEC Alpha native support
272 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
273 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
274 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
275 Alpha-specific notes.
277 * Preliminary thread implementation
279 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
281 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
283 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
284 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
287 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
289 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
290 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
291 call methods, ...etc.
293 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
295 * User visible changes:
297 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
298 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
299 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
300 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
302 Filename completion now works.
304 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
305 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
306 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
308 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
309 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
310 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
311 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
312 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
316 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
317 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
320 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
324 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
325 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
326 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
330 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
331 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
332 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
333 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
334 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
338 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
339 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
340 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
342 * New targets supported
344 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
345 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
346 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
347 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
348 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
350 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
351 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
352 GO32 memory extender.
354 * New remote protocols
356 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
358 * New source languages supported
360 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
361 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
362 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
365 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
367 * HP Precision Architecture supported
369 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
370 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
371 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
372 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
373 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
374 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
376 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
378 * Faster and better demangling
380 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
381 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
382 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
383 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
384 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
385 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
388 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
389 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
390 compiler does not actually implement.
392 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
394 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
395 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
396 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
397 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
398 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
399 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
402 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
403 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
405 * Improved configure script
407 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
408 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
409 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
410 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
412 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
413 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
414 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
415 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
416 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
417 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
419 * Documentation improvements
421 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
422 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
423 before submitting changes.
425 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
426 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
427 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
428 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
429 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
431 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
432 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
433 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
434 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
435 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
440 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
441 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
442 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
445 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
446 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
448 * New native hosts supported
450 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
451 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
453 * New targets supported
455 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
457 * New file formats supported
459 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
460 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
464 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
466 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
467 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
469 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
470 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
471 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
473 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
474 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
476 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
477 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
478 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
481 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
482 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
483 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
484 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
485 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
487 * Internal improvements
489 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
490 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
492 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
493 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
494 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
495 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
496 shared code that handles any of them.
498 * New command line options
500 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
504 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
505 General Public License.
507 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
509 * Host/native/target split
511 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
512 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
513 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
514 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
515 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
517 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
518 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
519 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
520 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
521 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
522 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
523 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
525 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
526 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
527 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
529 * New hosts supported
531 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
532 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
533 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
535 * New targets supported
537 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
538 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
540 * New native hosts supported
542 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
543 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
544 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
546 * New file formats supported
548 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
549 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
550 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
554 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
555 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
556 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
558 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
560 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
561 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
562 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
563 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
567 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
568 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
569 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
571 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
575 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
576 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
579 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
580 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
582 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
583 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
584 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
585 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
586 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
587 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
589 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
590 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
591 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
592 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
596 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
597 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
598 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
599 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
600 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
602 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
603 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
604 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
605 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
609 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
610 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
611 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
612 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
613 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
614 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
615 each instruction being stepped through.
617 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
618 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
620 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
621 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
622 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
623 processor with a serial port.
627 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
628 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
629 supported, and what files each one uses.
633 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
634 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
635 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
636 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
638 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
639 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
640 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
641 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
645 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
646 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
647 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
648 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
649 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
650 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
652 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
655 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
657 * Better support for C++ function names
659 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
660 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
661 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
662 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
663 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
665 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
666 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
667 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
668 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
669 for the list of formats.
671 * G++ symbol mangling problem
673 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
674 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
675 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
676 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
677 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
678 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
681 * New 'maintenance' command
683 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
684 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
685 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
687 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
688 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
689 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
690 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
691 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
692 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
694 The following commands are new:
696 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
697 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
698 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
700 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
702 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
703 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
704 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
705 read after argv processing.
707 * New hosts supported
709 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
711 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
713 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
714 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
715 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
716 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
717 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
720 * New targets supported
722 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
724 * More smarts about finding #include files
726 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
727 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
728 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
729 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
730 the one that contains your sources.
732 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
733 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
734 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
736 * Interesting infernals change
738 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
739 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
740 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
741 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
743 * Bug fixes (of course!)
745 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
746 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
747 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
749 See the ChangeLog for details.
751 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
753 * New machines supported (host and target)
755 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
757 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
761 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
762 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
763 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
764 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
765 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
766 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
770 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
771 'help info proc' for details.
773 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
775 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
776 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
779 * File name changes for MS-DOS
781 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
782 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
783 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
784 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
785 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
786 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
788 * Cross byte order fixes
790 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
791 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
793 * New -mapped and -readnow options
795 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
796 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
797 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
798 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
799 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
800 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
801 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
802 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
803 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
804 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
806 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
807 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
808 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
809 slower, but makes future operations faster.
811 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
812 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
813 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
816 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
818 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
819 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
820 shared across multiple host platforms.
824 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
825 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
826 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
827 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
831 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
832 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
837 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
838 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
839 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
841 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
843 * New machines supported (host and target)
845 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
847 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
848 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
850 * New machines supported (target)
852 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
856 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
857 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
858 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
860 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
861 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
862 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
863 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
864 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
867 * New features for SVR4
869 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
870 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
871 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
873 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
874 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
875 it prints the address mappings of the process.
877 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
878 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
880 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
882 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
883 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
884 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
885 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
886 same code linked statically.
890 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
891 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
892 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
893 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
894 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
895 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
899 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
900 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
901 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
904 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
906 * New machines supported (host and target)
908 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
909 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
910 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
912 * Almost SCO Unix support
914 We had hoped to support:
915 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
916 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
917 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
918 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
920 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
922 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
923 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
924 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
925 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
930 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
931 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
932 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
936 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
937 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
938 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
940 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
942 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
943 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
944 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
946 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
947 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
948 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
949 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
952 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
953 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
954 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
955 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
958 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
959 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
962 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
963 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
964 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
967 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
969 * Improved configuration
971 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
972 Porting BFD is simpler.
976 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
977 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
978 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
979 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
983 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
985 * New host supported (not target)
987 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
990 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
992 * Multiple source language support
994 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
995 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
996 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
997 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
998 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
999 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1003 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1004 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1005 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1006 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1008 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1009 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1010 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1012 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1013 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1017 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1018 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1019 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1020 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1023 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1025 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1026 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1027 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1028 examining core files.
1032 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1035 * New machines supported (host and target)
1037 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1038 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1039 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1041 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1043 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1045 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1047 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1048 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1049 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1051 * New remote interfaces
1057 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1061 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1063 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1064 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1065 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1066 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1067 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1068 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1069 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1070 stub on the target system.
1072 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1074 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1075 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1076 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1078 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1079 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1082 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1084 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1085 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1087 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1088 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1089 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1091 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1092 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1093 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1094 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1096 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1097 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1098 it is already running. Default is ON.
1100 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1101 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1102 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1103 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1106 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1107 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1108 or the value of the environment variable
1111 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1112 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1115 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1116 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1117 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1119 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1120 history expansion will be performed on
1121 command line input. The default is OFF.
1123 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1124 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1125 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1127 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1128 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1129 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1132 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1133 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1134 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1137 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1138 ``set width'' instead.
1140 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1141 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1142 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1143 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1145 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1148 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1151 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1154 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1157 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1159 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1160 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1161 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1165 * Support for Shared Libraries
1167 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1168 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1169 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1170 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1171 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1172 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1173 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1174 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1176 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1177 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1178 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1180 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1185 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1186 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1187 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1188 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1189 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1190 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1192 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1194 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1196 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1197 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1198 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1201 * C++ multiple inheritance
1203 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1206 * C++ exception handling
1208 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1209 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1210 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1213 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1214 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1215 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1217 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1218 current stack frame.
1221 * Minor command changes
1223 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1224 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1225 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1227 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1228 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1229 frames without printing.
1231 * New directory command
1233 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1234 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1235 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1236 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1237 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1239 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1241 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1244 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1245 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1246 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1247 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob