1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.7
6 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
7 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
9 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
12 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
13 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
14 and in inlined functions.
16 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
18 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
19 registers on PowerPC targets.
21 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
22 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
24 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
26 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
27 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
28 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
30 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
31 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
32 -Bsymbolic linker option.
34 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
35 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
38 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
39 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
41 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
42 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
44 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
46 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
47 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
48 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
50 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
51 automatically displayed as character or string data.
53 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
54 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
57 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
58 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
59 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
61 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
64 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
65 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
66 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
68 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
70 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
72 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
73 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
74 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
76 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
77 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
79 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
80 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
81 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
82 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
83 Windows and SymbianOS).
85 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
86 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
88 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
89 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
95 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
96 when debugging using remote targets.
98 set mem inaccessible-by-default
99 show mem inaccessible-by-default
100 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
101 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
102 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
103 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
104 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
106 set breakpoint auto-hw
107 show breakpoint auto-hw
108 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
109 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
110 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
111 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
112 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
113 including "next" and "finish".
116 catch exception unhandled
117 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
120 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
124 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
125 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
126 an alias to "set sysroot".
129 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
130 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
133 * New native configurations
135 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
140 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
141 not query the target for its built-in description.
145 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
146 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
147 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
152 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
153 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
156 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
161 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
162 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
164 qXfer:libraries:read:
165 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
166 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
167 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
168 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
172 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
181 i[34567]86-*-netware*
182 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
183 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
185 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
188 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
189 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
198 * Other removed features
205 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
212 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
217 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
218 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
223 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
224 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
226 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
228 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
229 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
230 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
231 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
235 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
236 in debugging information.
240 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
241 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
243 set mips stack-arg-size
244 set mips saved-gpreg-size
246 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
248 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
253 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
255 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
256 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
257 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
259 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
260 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
263 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
264 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
266 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
267 stub provides the required support.
269 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
270 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
275 unset substitute-path
277 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
278 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
279 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
280 between compilation and debugging.
284 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
285 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
286 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
290 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
292 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
293 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
295 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
300 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
301 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
302 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
303 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
307 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
308 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
310 qXfer:memory-map:read:
311 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
312 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
317 Erase and program a flash memory device.
319 * Removed remote packets
322 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
323 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
325 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
329 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
331 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
335 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
336 only if it doesn't already have a value.
338 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
340 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
342 restart <n> Return the program state to a
343 previously saved state.
345 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
347 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
349 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
350 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
352 info forks List forks of the user program that
353 are available to be debugged.
355 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
356 forks of the user program that are
357 available to be debugged.
359 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
360 that are available to be debugged (and
361 kill the forked process).
363 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
364 that are available to be debugged (and
365 allow the process to continue).
369 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
371 * Improved Windows host support
373 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
374 native console support, and remote communications using either
375 network sockets or serial ports.
377 * Improved Modula-2 language support
379 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
380 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
381 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
382 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
383 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
384 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
388 The ARM rdi-share module.
390 The Netware NLM debug server.
392 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
394 * New native configurations
396 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
397 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
401 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
403 * New command line options
405 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
406 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
407 the child (debugged) program exited with.
408 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
409 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
410 specified multiple times and in conjunction
411 with the --command (-x) option.
413 * Deprecated commands removed
415 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
419 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
420 othernames set arm disassembler
421 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
422 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
423 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
426 * New BSD user-level threads support
428 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
429 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
432 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
433 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
434 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
436 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
437 are not yet supported.
439 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
440 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
442 * REMOVED configurations and files
444 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
445 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
446 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
448 * New "set print array-indexes" command
450 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
451 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
454 * VAX floating point support
456 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
458 * User-defined command support
460 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
461 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
462 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
464 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
466 * New command line option
468 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
471 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
473 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
474 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
475 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
476 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
477 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
479 * Internationalization
481 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
482 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
483 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
487 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
488 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
489 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
491 * New native configurations
493 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
497 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
498 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
500 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
502 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
503 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
504 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
507 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
508 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
509 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
521 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
522 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
524 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
526 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
527 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
528 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
538 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
540 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
542 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
543 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
546 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
548 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
549 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
550 IRIX long double values).
554 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
555 command. This problem has been fixed.
557 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
559 * Fix for ``many threads''
561 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
562 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
565 ptrace: No such process.
566 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
568 This problem has been fixed.
570 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
572 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
575 * New ``start'' command.
577 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
579 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
581 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
582 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
583 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
585 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
586 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
587 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
588 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
589 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
590 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
591 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
592 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
593 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
595 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
597 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
598 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
599 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
600 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
601 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
603 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
604 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
605 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
607 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
609 * New native configurations
611 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
612 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
613 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
614 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
615 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
616 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
617 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
619 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
621 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
622 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
623 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
624 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
625 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
626 work, was also included.
628 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
629 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
639 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
640 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
642 * REMOVED configurations and files
644 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
645 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
646 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
647 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
648 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
649 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
650 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
651 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
652 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
654 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
656 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
658 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
660 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
661 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
662 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
663 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
666 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
668 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
669 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
670 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
671 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
672 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
673 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
676 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
678 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
680 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
681 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
682 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
684 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
686 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
687 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
689 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
691 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
692 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
693 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
695 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
697 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
698 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
700 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
702 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
703 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
704 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
706 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
708 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
709 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
710 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
712 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
714 * Removed --with-mmalloc
716 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
717 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
719 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
721 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
722 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
723 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
724 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
726 * Revised SPARC target
728 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
729 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
730 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
731 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
732 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
736 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
737 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
738 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
741 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
743 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
744 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
747 * C++ nested types and namespaces
749 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
750 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
751 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
752 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
753 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
754 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
755 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
756 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
757 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
759 * New native configurations
761 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
762 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
763 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
764 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
765 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
767 * New debugging protocols
769 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
771 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
773 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
774 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
775 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
777 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
779 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
780 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
781 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
784 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
785 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
786 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
787 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
788 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
789 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
790 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
791 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
792 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
794 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
796 * REMOVED configurations and files
798 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
799 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
800 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
801 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
802 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
803 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
804 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
805 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
806 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
807 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
808 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
809 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
810 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
811 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
812 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
813 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
814 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
816 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
820 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
823 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
825 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
826 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
827 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
830 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
831 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
836 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
837 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
838 remote protocol documentation for details.
840 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
842 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
843 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
844 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
847 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
849 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
850 per-thread variables.
852 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
854 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
855 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
857 * Separate debug info.
859 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
860 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
861 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
862 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
863 and optional debug files.
865 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
867 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
868 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
871 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
872 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
876 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
877 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
878 considered "useable".
880 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
882 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
883 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
886 * GDB supports logging output to a file
888 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
889 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
891 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
893 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
894 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
897 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
899 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
900 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
904 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
905 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
906 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
907 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
908 data, for more informative profiling results.
910 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
912 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
913 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
914 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
916 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
919 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
920 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
921 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
922 in a subsequent -var-update.
924 * New native configurations.
926 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
928 * Multi-arched targets.
930 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
931 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
933 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
935 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
936 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
937 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
940 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
941 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
942 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
943 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
944 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
945 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
946 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
947 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
948 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
949 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
950 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
951 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
953 * REMOVED configurations and files
956 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
957 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
958 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
959 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
960 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
961 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
963 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
964 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
965 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
966 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
967 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
968 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
970 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
972 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
973 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
974 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
975 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
976 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
978 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
980 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
982 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
983 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
984 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
985 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
986 shared libs like mad''.
988 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
990 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
991 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
992 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
993 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
995 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
997 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
998 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1001 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1002 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1004 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1005 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1007 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1008 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1009 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1010 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1012 * Multi-arched targets.
1014 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1015 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1017 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1018 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1019 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1023 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1026 * New native configurations
1028 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1029 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1030 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1031 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1033 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1035 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1036 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1037 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1038 permanently REMOVED.
1040 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1041 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1042 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1043 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1044 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1045 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1046 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1047 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1048 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1049 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1051 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1052 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1054 * OBSOLETE languages
1056 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1058 * REMOVED configurations and files
1060 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1061 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1062 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1063 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1064 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1066 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1068 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1070 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1071 commands. The default is 1024.
1073 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1075 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1077 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1079 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1080 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1081 from a file into memory (restore).
1083 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1085 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1086 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1087 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1089 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1097 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1098 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1099 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1101 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1102 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1103 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1105 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1106 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1107 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1109 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1110 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1111 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1113 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1115 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1117 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1118 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1119 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1120 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1121 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1122 (notably embedded) targets.
1124 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1126 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1127 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1128 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1129 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1131 * New command line option
1133 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1135 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1137 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1138 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1139 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1140 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1141 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1142 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1143 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1144 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1145 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1146 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1148 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1150 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1151 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1153 * New native configurations
1155 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1156 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1157 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1158 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1162 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1164 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1166 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1167 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1168 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1169 permanently REMOVED.
1171 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1172 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1173 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1174 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1175 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1177 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1179 * REMOVED configurations and files
1181 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1183 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1184 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1185 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1186 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1187 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1188 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1189 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1190 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1191 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1192 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1193 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1195 * Changes to command line processing
1197 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1198 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1200 * Changes to key bindings
1202 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1204 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1206 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1208 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1211 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1213 Numerous documentation fixes.
1215 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1217 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1219 * New native configurations
1221 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1222 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1223 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1224 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1225 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1226 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1230 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1232 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1234 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1236 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1237 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1238 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1239 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1240 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1242 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1243 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1244 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1245 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1246 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1247 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1248 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1249 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1251 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1252 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1254 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1255 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1256 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1257 permanently REMOVED.
1259 * REMOVED configurations and files
1261 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1262 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1264 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1268 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1270 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1271 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1276 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1278 * The MI enabled by default.
1280 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1281 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1282 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1283 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1284 which is now deprecated.
1286 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1288 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1289 main features are supported:
1291 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1293 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1296 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1298 - a Pascal expression parser.
1300 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1302 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1304 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1306 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1307 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1309 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1311 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1313 * Changes in completion.
1315 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1316 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1317 users expect at the shell prompt.
1319 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1320 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1321 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1322 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1323 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1324 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1325 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1327 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1329 * New platform-independent commands:
1331 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1332 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1333 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1335 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1337 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1338 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1339 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1341 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1343 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1344 multi-threaded programs though.
1346 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1348 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1350 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1351 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1354 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1356 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1357 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1358 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1359 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1360 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1363 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1364 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1365 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1367 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1369 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1370 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1372 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1373 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1376 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1377 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1378 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1379 a given linear address.
1381 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1382 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1383 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1385 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1387 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1389 * Changes in documentation.
1391 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1392 Documentation License.
1394 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1397 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1399 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1402 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1403 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1404 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1406 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1408 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1409 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1410 contents of this file.
1414 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1416 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1418 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1420 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1421 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1422 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1423 greater level of detail.
1425 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1427 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1428 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1429 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1432 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1434 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1435 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1436 machines ``out of the box''.
1438 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1439 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1440 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1441 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1442 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1444 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1445 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1446 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1447 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1448 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1450 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1451 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1454 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1457 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1458 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1459 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1460 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1462 * New native configurations
1464 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1465 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1469 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1470 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1471 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1472 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1474 * OBSOLETE configurations
1476 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1477 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1479 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1482 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1483 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1484 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1485 be permanently REMOVED.
1487 * Gould support removed
1489 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1491 * New features for SVR4
1493 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1494 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1495 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1497 * Many C++ enhancements
1499 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1500 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1502 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1504 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1505 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1506 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1507 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1509 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1510 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1512 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1514 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1515 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1516 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1518 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1519 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1521 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1523 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1524 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1525 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1527 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1529 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1530 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1531 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1533 * ``apropos'' command added.
1535 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1536 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1537 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1541 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1542 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1543 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1544 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1545 enabled by configuring with:
1547 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1549 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1551 * New native configurations
1553 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1554 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1555 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1559 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1560 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1561 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1563 * OBSOLETE configurations
1565 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1567 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1568 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1569 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1570 be permanently REMOVED.
1574 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1575 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1576 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1577 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1578 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1579 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1580 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1585 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1587 * set extension-language
1589 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1590 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1591 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1592 set extension-language .c c++
1593 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1594 and their associated languages.
1596 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1598 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1599 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1600 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1604 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1605 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1607 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1608 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1610 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1611 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1612 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1613 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1614 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1615 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1616 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1617 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1619 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1620 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1621 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1622 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1626 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1627 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1628 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1629 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1630 for xdb and dbx commands.
1634 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1635 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1636 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1638 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1639 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1640 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1642 * Debugging across forks
1644 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1649 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1650 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1651 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1653 * GDB remote protocol additions
1655 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1656 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1657 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1658 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1660 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1661 full 64-bit address. The command
1663 set remoteaddresssize 32
1665 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1666 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1669 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1670 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1672 maint packet heythere
1674 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1675 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1678 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1679 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1680 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1682 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1684 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1685 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1686 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1688 * mask-address variable for Mips
1690 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1691 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1692 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1694 * Higher serial baud rates
1696 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1697 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1698 to achieve all of these rates.)
1702 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1703 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1706 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1708 * New native configurations
1710 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1711 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1712 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1713 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1714 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1715 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1716 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1720 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1721 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1722 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1723 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1724 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1725 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1726 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1727 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1728 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1729 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1730 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1732 * New debugging protocols
1734 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1735 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1736 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1737 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1738 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1739 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1743 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1744 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1749 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1750 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1752 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1754 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1755 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1756 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1758 * Live range splitting
1760 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1761 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1762 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1766 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1767 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1771 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1772 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1773 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1778 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1783 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1784 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1785 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1786 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1787 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1788 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1792 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1793 the symbol at the specified address.
1797 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1798 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1799 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1800 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1801 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1805 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1806 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1807 of most MIPS variants.
1811 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1812 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1813 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1817 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1818 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1819 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1820 the possible architectures.
1822 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1824 * New native configurations
1826 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1827 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1828 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1829 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1830 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1831 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1835 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1836 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1837 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1838 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1839 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1841 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1845 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1846 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1847 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1848 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1849 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1853 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1855 * Windows 95/NT native
1857 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1858 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1859 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1860 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1861 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1863 * dont-repeat command
1865 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1866 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1867 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1868 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1870 * Send break instead of ^C
1872 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1873 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1874 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1876 * Remote protocol timeout
1878 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1879 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1880 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1882 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1884 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1885 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1886 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1887 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1888 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1890 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1891 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1892 automatically on hpux10.
1894 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1896 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1898 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1900 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1901 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1902 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1903 every character. The default value is 1050.
1905 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1907 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1908 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1909 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1910 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1911 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1912 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1914 * Speedups for remote debugging
1916 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1917 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1918 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1920 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1922 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1923 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1925 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1927 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1929 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1930 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1932 * Remote targets use caching
1934 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1935 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1936 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1937 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1938 off' turns the the data cache off.
1940 * Remote targets may have threads
1942 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1943 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1944 gdb/remote.c for details.
1948 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1949 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1950 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1951 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1952 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1953 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1954 sequence is something like
1956 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1958 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1962 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1963 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1964 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1965 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1966 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1967 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1968 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1969 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1973 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1974 but does simplify configuration and building.
1978 GDB now supports hpux10.
1980 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1982 * New native configurations
1984 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1985 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1986 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1987 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1991 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1992 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1993 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1994 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1997 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1999 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2000 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2001 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2002 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2003 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2005 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2007 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2008 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2011 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2013 To execute the command use:
2016 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2017 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2018 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2020 * New `if' and `while' commands
2022 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2023 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2024 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2025 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2026 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2027 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2028 if the expression is zero.
2030 * Fortran source language mode
2032 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2033 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2034 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2035 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2038 * Better HPUX support
2040 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2041 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2042 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2043 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2044 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2050 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2051 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2057 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2058 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2061 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2062 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2064 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2066 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2067 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2068 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2069 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2070 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2071 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2073 * New DOS host serial code
2075 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2076 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2079 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2081 * New "complete" command
2083 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2084 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2086 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2088 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2089 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2091 * Breakpoint hit counts
2093 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2094 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2095 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2096 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2097 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2100 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2102 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2103 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2104 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2106 * Shared library breakpoints
2108 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2109 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2111 * Hardware watchpoints
2113 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2114 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2116 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2120 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2121 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2123 * Improved Irix 5 support
2125 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2127 * Improved HPPA support
2129 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2131 * New native configurations
2133 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2134 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2135 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2136 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2140 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2141 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2144 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2146 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2147 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2151 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2152 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2154 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2156 * Irix 5 is now supported
2160 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2161 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2162 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2163 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2164 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2167 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2169 * User visible changes:
2173 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2174 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2175 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2176 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2177 debugging info for the mips target).
2179 * DEC Alpha native support
2181 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2182 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2183 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2184 Alpha-specific notes.
2186 * Preliminary thread implementation
2188 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2190 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2192 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2193 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2196 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2198 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2199 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2200 call methods, ...etc.
2202 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2204 * User visible changes:
2206 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2207 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2208 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2209 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2211 Filename completion now works.
2213 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2214 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2215 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2217 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2218 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2219 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2220 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2221 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2225 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2226 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2229 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2233 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2234 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2235 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2239 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2240 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2241 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2242 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2243 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2247 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2248 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2249 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2251 * New targets supported
2253 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2254 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2255 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2256 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2257 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2259 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2260 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2261 GO32 memory extender.
2263 * New remote protocols
2265 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2267 * New source languages supported
2269 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2270 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2271 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2274 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2276 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2278 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2279 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2280 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2281 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2282 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2283 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2285 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2287 * Faster and better demangling
2289 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2290 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2291 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2292 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2293 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2294 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2297 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2298 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2299 compiler does not actually implement.
2301 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2303 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2304 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2305 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2306 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2307 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2308 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2311 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2312 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2314 * Improved configure script
2316 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2317 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2318 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2319 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2321 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2322 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2323 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2324 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2325 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2326 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2328 * Documentation improvements
2330 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2331 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2332 before submitting changes.
2334 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2335 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2336 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2337 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2338 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2340 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2341 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2342 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2343 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2344 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2345 around this problem.
2349 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2350 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2351 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2354 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2355 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2357 * New native hosts supported
2359 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2360 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2362 * New targets supported
2364 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2366 * New file formats supported
2368 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2369 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2373 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2375 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2376 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2378 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2379 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2380 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2382 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2383 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2385 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2386 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2387 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2390 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2391 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2392 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2393 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2394 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2396 * Internal improvements
2398 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2399 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2401 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2402 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2403 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2404 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2405 shared code that handles any of them.
2407 * New command line options
2409 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2413 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2414 General Public License.
2416 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2418 * Host/native/target split
2420 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2421 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2422 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2423 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2424 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2426 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2427 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2428 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2429 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2430 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2431 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2432 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2434 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2435 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2436 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2438 * New hosts supported
2440 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2441 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2442 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2444 * New targets supported
2446 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2447 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2449 * New native hosts supported
2451 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2452 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2453 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2455 * New file formats supported
2457 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2458 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2459 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2463 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2464 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2465 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2467 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2469 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2470 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2471 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2472 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2476 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2477 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2478 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2480 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2484 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2485 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2488 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2489 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2491 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2492 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2493 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2494 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2495 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2496 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2498 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2499 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2500 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2501 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2505 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2506 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2507 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2508 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2509 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2511 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2512 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2513 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2514 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2518 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2519 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2520 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2521 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2522 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2523 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2524 each instruction being stepped through.
2526 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2527 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2529 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2530 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2531 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2532 processor with a serial port.
2536 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2537 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2538 supported, and what files each one uses.
2542 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2543 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2544 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2545 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2547 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2548 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2549 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2550 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2554 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2555 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2556 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2557 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2558 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2559 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2561 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2564 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2566 * Better support for C++ function names
2568 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2569 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2570 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2571 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2572 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2574 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2575 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2576 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2577 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2578 for the list of formats.
2580 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2582 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2583 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2584 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2585 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2586 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2587 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2590 * New 'maintenance' command
2592 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2593 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2594 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2596 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2597 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2598 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2599 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2600 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2601 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2603 The following commands are new:
2605 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2606 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2607 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2609 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2611 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2612 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2613 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2614 read after argv processing.
2616 * New hosts supported
2618 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2620 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2622 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2623 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2624 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2625 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2626 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2629 * New targets supported
2631 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2633 * More smarts about finding #include files
2635 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2636 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2637 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2638 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2639 the one that contains your sources.
2641 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2642 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2643 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2645 * Interesting infernals change
2647 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2648 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2649 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2650 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2652 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2654 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2655 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2656 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2658 See the ChangeLog for details.
2660 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2662 * New machines supported (host and target)
2664 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2666 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2668 * New malloc package
2670 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2671 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2672 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2673 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2674 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2675 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2679 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2680 'help info proc' for details.
2682 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2684 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2685 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2688 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2690 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2691 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2692 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2693 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2694 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2695 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2697 * Cross byte order fixes
2699 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2700 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2702 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2704 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2705 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2706 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2707 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2708 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2709 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2710 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2711 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2712 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2713 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2715 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2716 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2717 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2718 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2720 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2721 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2722 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2725 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2727 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2728 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2729 shared across multiple host platforms.
2731 * longjmp() handling
2733 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2734 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2735 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2736 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2740 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2741 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2746 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2747 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2748 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2750 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2752 * New machines supported (host and target)
2754 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2756 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2757 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2759 * New machines supported (target)
2761 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2765 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2766 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2767 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2769 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2770 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2771 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2772 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2773 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2776 * New features for SVR4
2778 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2779 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2780 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2782 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2783 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2784 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2786 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2787 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2789 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2791 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2792 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2793 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2794 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2795 same code linked statically.
2799 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2800 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2801 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2802 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2803 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2804 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2808 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2809 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2810 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2813 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2815 * New machines supported (host and target)
2817 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2818 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2819 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2821 * Almost SCO Unix support
2823 We had hoped to support:
2824 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2825 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2826 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2827 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2829 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2831 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2832 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2833 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2834 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2839 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2840 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2841 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2845 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2846 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2847 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2849 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2851 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2852 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2853 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2855 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2856 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2857 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2858 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2861 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2862 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2863 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2864 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2867 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2868 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2871 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2872 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2873 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2876 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2878 * Improved configuration
2880 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2881 Porting BFD is simpler.
2885 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2886 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2887 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2888 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2892 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2894 * New host supported (not target)
2896 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2899 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2901 * Multiple source language support
2903 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2904 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2905 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2906 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2907 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2908 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2912 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2913 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2914 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2915 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2917 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2918 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2919 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2921 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2922 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2926 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2927 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2928 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2929 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2932 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2934 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2935 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2936 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2937 examining core files.
2941 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2944 * New machines supported (host and target)
2946 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2947 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2948 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2950 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2952 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2954 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2956 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2957 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2958 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2960 * New remote interfaces
2966 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2970 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2972 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2973 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2974 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2975 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2976 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2977 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2978 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2979 stub on the target system.
2981 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2983 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2984 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2985 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2987 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2988 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2991 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2993 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2994 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2996 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2997 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2998 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3000 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3001 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3002 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3003 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3005 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3006 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3007 it is already running. Default is ON.
3009 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3010 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3011 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3012 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3015 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3016 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3017 or the value of the environment variable
3020 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3021 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3024 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3025 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3026 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3028 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3029 history expansion will be performed on
3030 command line input. The default is OFF.
3032 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3033 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3034 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3036 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3037 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3038 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3041 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3042 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3043 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3046 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3047 ``set width'' instead.
3049 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3050 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3051 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3052 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3054 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3057 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3060 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3063 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3066 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3068 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3069 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3070 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3074 * Support for Shared Libraries
3076 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3077 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3078 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3079 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3080 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3081 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3082 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3083 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3085 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3086 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3087 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3089 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3094 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3095 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3096 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3097 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3098 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3099 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3101 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3103 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3105 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3106 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3107 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3110 * C++ multiple inheritance
3112 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3115 * C++ exception handling
3117 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3118 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3119 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3122 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3123 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3124 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3126 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3127 current stack frame.
3130 * Minor command changes
3132 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3133 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3134 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3136 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3137 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3138 frames without printing.
3140 * New directory command
3142 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3143 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3144 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3145 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3146 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3148 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3150 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3153 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3154 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3155 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3156 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob