1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.3
7 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
9 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
11 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
12 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
13 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
14 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
15 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
19 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
20 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
21 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
23 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
25 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
27 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
28 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
31 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
33 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
34 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
35 IRIX long double values).
39 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
40 command. This problem has been fixed.
42 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
44 * Fix for ``many threads''
46 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
47 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
50 ptrace: No such process.
51 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
53 This problem has been fixed.
55 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
57 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
60 * New ``start'' command.
62 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
64 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
66 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
67 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
68 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
70 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
71 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
72 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
73 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
74 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
75 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
76 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
77 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
78 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
80 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
82 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
83 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
84 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
85 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
86 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
88 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
89 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
90 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
92 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
94 * New native configurations
96 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
97 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
98 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
99 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
100 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
101 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
102 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
104 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
106 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
107 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
108 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
109 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
110 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
111 work, was also included.
113 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
114 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
124 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
125 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
127 * REMOVED configurations and files
129 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
130 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
131 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
132 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
133 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
134 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
135 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
136 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
137 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
139 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
141 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
143 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
145 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
146 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
147 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
148 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
151 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
153 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
154 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
155 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
156 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
157 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
158 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
161 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
163 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
165 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
166 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
167 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
169 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
171 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
172 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
174 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
176 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
177 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
178 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
180 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
182 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
183 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
185 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
187 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
188 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
189 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
191 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
193 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
194 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
195 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
197 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
199 * Removed --with-mmalloc
201 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
202 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
204 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
206 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
207 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
208 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
209 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
211 * Revised SPARC target
213 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
214 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
215 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
216 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
217 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
221 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
222 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
223 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
226 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
228 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
229 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
232 * C++ nested types and namespaces
234 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
235 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
236 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
237 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
238 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
239 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
240 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
241 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
242 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
244 * New native configurations
246 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
247 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
248 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
249 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
250 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
252 * New debugging protocols
254 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
256 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
258 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
259 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
260 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
262 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
264 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
265 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
266 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
269 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
270 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
271 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
272 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
273 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
274 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
275 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
276 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
277 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
279 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
281 * REMOVED configurations and files
283 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
284 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
285 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
286 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
287 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
288 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
289 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
290 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
291 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
292 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
293 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
294 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
295 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
296 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
297 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
298 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
299 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
301 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
305 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
308 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
310 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
311 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
312 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
315 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
316 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
321 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
322 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
323 remote protocol documentation for details.
325 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
327 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
328 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
329 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
332 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
334 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
335 per-thread variables.
337 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
339 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
340 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
342 * Separate debug info.
344 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
345 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
346 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
347 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
348 and optional debug files.
350 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
352 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
353 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
356 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
357 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
361 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
362 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
363 considered "useable".
365 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
367 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
368 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
371 * GDB supports logging output to a file
373 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
374 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
376 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
378 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
379 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
382 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
384 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
385 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
389 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
390 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
391 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
392 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
393 data, for more informative profiling results.
395 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
397 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
398 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
399 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
401 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
404 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
405 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
406 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
407 in a subsequent -var-update.
409 * New native configurations.
411 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
413 * Multi-arched targets.
415 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
416 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
418 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
420 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
421 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
422 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
425 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
426 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
427 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
428 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
429 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
430 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
431 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
432 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
433 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
434 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
435 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
436 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
438 * REMOVED configurations and files
441 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
442 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
443 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
444 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
445 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
446 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
448 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
449 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
450 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
451 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
452 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
453 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
455 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
457 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
458 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
459 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
460 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
461 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
463 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
465 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
467 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
468 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
469 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
470 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
471 shared libs like mad''.
473 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
475 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
476 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
477 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
478 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
480 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
482 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
483 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
486 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
487 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
489 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
490 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
492 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
493 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
494 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
495 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
497 * Multi-arched targets.
499 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
500 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
502 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
503 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
504 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
508 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
511 * New native configurations
513 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
514 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
515 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
516 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
518 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
520 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
521 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
522 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
525 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
526 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
527 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
528 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
529 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
530 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
531 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
532 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
533 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
534 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
536 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
537 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
541 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
543 * REMOVED configurations and files
545 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
546 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
547 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
548 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
549 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
551 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
553 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
555 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
556 commands. The default is 1024.
558 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
560 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
562 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
564 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
565 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
566 from a file into memory (restore).
568 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
570 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
571 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
572 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
574 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
582 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
583 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
584 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
586 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
587 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
588 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
590 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
591 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
592 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
594 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
595 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
596 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
598 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
600 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
602 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
603 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
604 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
605 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
606 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
607 (notably embedded) targets.
609 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
611 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
612 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
613 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
614 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
616 * New command line option
618 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
620 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
622 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
623 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
624 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
625 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
626 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
627 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
628 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
629 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
630 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
631 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
633 * Changes in ARM configurations.
635 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
636 configuration is fully multi-arch.
638 * New native configurations
640 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
641 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
642 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
643 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
647 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
649 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
651 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
652 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
653 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
656 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
657 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
658 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
659 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
660 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
662 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
664 * REMOVED configurations and files
666 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
668 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
669 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
670 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
671 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
672 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
673 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
674 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
675 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
676 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
677 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
678 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
680 * Changes to command line processing
682 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
683 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
685 * Changes to key bindings
687 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
689 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
691 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
693 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
696 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
698 Numerous documentation fixes.
700 Numerous testsuite fixes.
702 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
704 * New native configurations
706 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
707 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
708 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
709 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
711 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
715 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
717 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
719 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
721 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
722 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
723 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
724 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
725 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
727 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
728 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
729 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
730 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
731 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
732 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
733 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
734 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
736 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
737 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
739 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
740 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
741 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
744 * REMOVED configurations and files
746 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
747 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
749 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
753 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
755 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
756 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
761 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
763 * The MI enabled by default.
765 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
766 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
767 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
768 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
769 which is now deprecated.
771 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
773 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
774 main features are supported:
776 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
778 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
781 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
783 - a Pascal expression parser.
785 However, some important features are not yet supported.
787 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
789 - there are some problems with boolean types;
791 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
792 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
794 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
796 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
798 * Changes in completion.
800 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
801 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
802 users expect at the shell prompt.
804 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
805 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
806 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
807 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
808 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
809 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
810 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
812 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
814 * New platform-independent commands:
816 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
817 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
818 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
820 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
822 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
823 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
824 many threads as your system allows you to have.
826 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
828 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
829 multi-threaded programs though.
831 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
833 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
835 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
836 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
839 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
841 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
842 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
843 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
844 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
845 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
848 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
849 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
850 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
852 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
854 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
855 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
857 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
858 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
861 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
862 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
863 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
864 a given linear address.
866 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
867 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
868 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
870 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
872 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
874 * Changes in documentation.
876 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
877 Documentation License.
879 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
882 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
884 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
887 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
888 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
889 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
891 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
893 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
894 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
895 contents of this file.
899 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
901 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
903 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
905 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
906 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
907 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
908 greater level of detail.
910 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
912 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
913 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
914 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
917 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
919 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
920 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
921 machines ``out of the box''.
923 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
924 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
925 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
926 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
927 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
929 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
930 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
931 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
932 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
933 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
935 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
936 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
939 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
942 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
943 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
944 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
945 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
947 * New native configurations
949 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
950 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
954 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
955 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
956 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
957 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
959 * OBSOLETE configurations
961 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
962 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
964 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
967 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
968 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
969 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
970 be permanently REMOVED.
972 * Gould support removed
974 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
976 * New features for SVR4
978 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
979 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
980 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
982 * Many C++ enhancements
984 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
985 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
987 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
989 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
990 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
991 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
992 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
994 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
995 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
997 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
999 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1000 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1001 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1003 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1004 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1006 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1008 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1009 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1010 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1012 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1014 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1015 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1016 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1018 * ``apropos'' command added.
1020 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1021 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1022 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1026 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1027 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1028 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1029 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1030 enabled by configuring with:
1032 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1034 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1036 * New native configurations
1038 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1039 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1040 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1044 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1045 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1046 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1048 * OBSOLETE configurations
1050 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1052 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1053 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1054 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1055 be permanently REMOVED.
1059 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1060 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1061 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1062 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1063 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1064 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1065 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1070 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1072 * set extension-language
1074 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1075 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1076 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1077 set extension-language .c c++
1078 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1079 and their associated languages.
1081 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1083 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1084 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1085 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1089 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1090 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1092 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1093 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1095 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1096 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1097 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1098 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1099 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1100 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1101 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1102 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1104 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1105 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1106 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1107 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1111 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1112 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1113 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1114 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1115 for xdb and dbx commands.
1119 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1120 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1121 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1123 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1124 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1125 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1127 * Debugging across forks
1129 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1134 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1135 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1136 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1138 * GDB remote protocol additions
1140 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1141 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1142 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1143 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1145 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1146 full 64-bit address. The command
1148 set remoteaddresssize 32
1150 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1151 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1154 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1155 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1157 maint packet heythere
1159 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1160 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1163 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1164 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1165 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1167 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1169 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1170 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1171 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1173 * mask-address variable for Mips
1175 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1176 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1177 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1179 * Higher serial baud rates
1181 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1182 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1183 to achieve all of these rates.)
1187 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1188 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1191 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1193 * New native configurations
1195 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1196 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1197 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1198 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1199 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1200 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1201 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1205 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1206 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1207 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1208 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1209 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1210 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1211 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1212 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1213 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1214 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1215 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1217 * New debugging protocols
1219 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1220 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1221 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1222 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1223 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1224 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1228 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1229 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1234 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1235 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1237 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1239 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1240 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1241 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1243 * Live range splitting
1245 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1246 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1247 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1251 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1252 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1256 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1257 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1258 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1263 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1268 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1269 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1270 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1271 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1272 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1273 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1277 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1278 the symbol at the specified address.
1282 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1283 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1284 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1285 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1286 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1290 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1291 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1292 of most MIPS variants.
1296 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1297 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1298 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1302 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1303 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1304 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1305 the possible architectures.
1307 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1309 * New native configurations
1311 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1312 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1313 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1314 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1315 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1316 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1320 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1321 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1322 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1323 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1324 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1326 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1330 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1331 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1332 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1333 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1334 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1338 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1340 * Windows 95/NT native
1342 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1343 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1344 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1345 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1346 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1348 * dont-repeat command
1350 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1351 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1352 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1353 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1355 * Send break instead of ^C
1357 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1358 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1359 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1361 * Remote protocol timeout
1363 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1364 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1365 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1367 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1369 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1370 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1371 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1372 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1373 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1375 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1376 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1377 automatically on hpux10.
1379 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1381 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1383 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1385 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1386 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1387 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1388 every character. The default value is 1050.
1390 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1392 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1393 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1394 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1395 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1396 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1397 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1399 * Speedups for remote debugging
1401 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1402 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1403 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1405 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1407 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1408 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1410 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1412 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1414 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1415 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1417 * Remote targets use caching
1419 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1420 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1421 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1422 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1423 off' turns the the data cache off.
1425 * Remote targets may have threads
1427 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1428 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1429 gdb/remote.c for details.
1433 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1434 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1435 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1436 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1437 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1438 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1439 sequence is something like
1441 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1443 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1447 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1448 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1449 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1450 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1451 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1452 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1453 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1454 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1458 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1459 but does simplify configuration and building.
1463 GDB now supports hpux10.
1465 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1467 * New native configurations
1469 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1470 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1471 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1472 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1476 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1477 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1478 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1479 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1482 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1484 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1485 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1486 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1487 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1488 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1490 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1492 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1493 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1496 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1498 To execute the command use:
1501 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1502 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1503 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1505 * New `if' and `while' commands
1507 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1508 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1509 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1510 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1511 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1512 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1513 if the expression is zero.
1515 * Fortran source language mode
1517 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1518 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1519 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1520 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1523 * Better HPUX support
1525 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1526 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1527 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1528 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1529 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1535 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1536 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1542 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1543 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1546 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1547 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1549 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1551 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1552 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1553 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1554 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1555 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1556 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1558 * New DOS host serial code
1560 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1561 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1564 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1566 * New "complete" command
1568 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1569 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1571 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1573 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1574 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1576 * Breakpoint hit counts
1578 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1579 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1580 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1581 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1582 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1585 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1587 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1588 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1589 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1591 * Shared library breakpoints
1593 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1594 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1596 * Hardware watchpoints
1598 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1599 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1601 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1605 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1606 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1608 * Improved Irix 5 support
1610 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1612 * Improved HPPA support
1614 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1616 * New native configurations
1618 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1619 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1620 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1621 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1625 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1626 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1629 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1631 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1632 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1636 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1637 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1639 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1641 * Irix 5 is now supported
1645 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1646 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1647 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1648 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1649 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1652 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1654 * User visible changes:
1658 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1659 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1660 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1661 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1662 debugging info for the mips target).
1664 * DEC Alpha native support
1666 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1667 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1668 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1669 Alpha-specific notes.
1671 * Preliminary thread implementation
1673 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1675 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1677 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1678 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1681 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1683 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1684 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1685 call methods, ...etc.
1687 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1689 * User visible changes:
1691 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1692 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1693 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1694 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1696 Filename completion now works.
1698 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1699 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1700 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1702 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1703 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1704 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1705 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1706 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1710 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1711 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1714 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1718 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1719 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1720 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1724 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1725 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1726 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1727 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1728 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1732 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1733 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1734 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1736 * New targets supported
1738 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1739 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1740 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1741 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1742 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1744 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1745 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1746 GO32 memory extender.
1748 * New remote protocols
1750 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1752 * New source languages supported
1754 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1755 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1756 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1759 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1761 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1763 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1764 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1765 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1766 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1767 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1768 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1770 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1772 * Faster and better demangling
1774 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1775 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1776 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1777 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1778 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1779 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1782 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1783 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1784 compiler does not actually implement.
1786 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1788 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1789 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1790 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1791 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1792 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1793 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1796 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1797 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1799 * Improved configure script
1801 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1802 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1803 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1804 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1806 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1807 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1808 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1809 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1810 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1811 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1813 * Documentation improvements
1815 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1816 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1817 before submitting changes.
1819 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1820 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1821 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1822 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1823 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1825 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1826 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1827 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1828 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1829 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1830 around this problem.
1834 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1835 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1836 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1839 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1840 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1842 * New native hosts supported
1844 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1845 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1847 * New targets supported
1849 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1851 * New file formats supported
1853 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1854 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1858 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1860 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1861 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1863 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1864 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1865 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1867 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1868 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1870 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1871 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1872 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1875 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1876 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1877 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1878 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1879 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1881 * Internal improvements
1883 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1884 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1886 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1887 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1888 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1889 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1890 shared code that handles any of them.
1892 * New command line options
1894 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1898 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1899 General Public License.
1901 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1903 * Host/native/target split
1905 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1906 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1907 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1908 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1909 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1911 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1912 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1913 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1914 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1915 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1916 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1917 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1919 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1920 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1921 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1923 * New hosts supported
1925 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1926 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1927 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1929 * New targets supported
1931 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1932 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1934 * New native hosts supported
1936 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1937 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1938 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1940 * New file formats supported
1942 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1943 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1944 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1948 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1949 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1950 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1952 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1954 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1955 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1956 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1957 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1961 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1962 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1963 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1965 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1969 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1970 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1973 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1974 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1976 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1977 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1978 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1979 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1980 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1981 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1983 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1984 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1985 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1986 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1990 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1991 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1992 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1993 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1994 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1996 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1997 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1998 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1999 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2003 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2004 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2005 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2006 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2007 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2008 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2009 each instruction being stepped through.
2011 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2012 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2014 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2015 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2016 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2017 processor with a serial port.
2021 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2022 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2023 supported, and what files each one uses.
2027 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2028 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2029 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2030 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2032 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2033 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2034 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2035 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2039 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2040 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2041 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2042 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2043 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2044 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2046 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2049 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2051 * Better support for C++ function names
2053 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2054 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2055 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2056 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2057 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2059 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2060 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2061 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2062 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2063 for the list of formats.
2065 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2067 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2068 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2069 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2070 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2071 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2072 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2075 * New 'maintenance' command
2077 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2078 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2079 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2081 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2082 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2083 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2084 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2085 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2086 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2088 The following commands are new:
2090 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2091 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2092 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2094 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2096 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2097 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2098 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2099 read after argv processing.
2101 * New hosts supported
2103 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2105 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2107 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2108 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2109 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2110 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2111 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2114 * New targets supported
2116 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2118 * More smarts about finding #include files
2120 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2121 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2122 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2123 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2124 the one that contains your sources.
2126 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2127 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2128 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2130 * Interesting infernals change
2132 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2133 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2134 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2135 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2137 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2139 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2140 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2141 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2143 See the ChangeLog for details.
2145 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2147 * New machines supported (host and target)
2149 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2151 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2153 * New malloc package
2155 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2156 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2157 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2158 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2159 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2160 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2164 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2165 'help info proc' for details.
2167 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2169 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2170 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2173 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2175 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2176 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2177 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2178 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2179 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2180 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2182 * Cross byte order fixes
2184 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2185 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2187 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2189 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2190 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2191 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2192 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2193 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2194 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2195 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2196 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2197 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2198 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2200 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2201 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2202 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2203 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2205 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2206 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2207 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2210 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2212 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2213 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2214 shared across multiple host platforms.
2216 * longjmp() handling
2218 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2219 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2220 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2221 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2225 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2226 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2231 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2232 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2233 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2235 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2237 * New machines supported (host and target)
2239 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2241 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2242 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2244 * New machines supported (target)
2246 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2250 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2251 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2252 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2254 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2255 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2256 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2257 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2258 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2261 * New features for SVR4
2263 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2264 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2265 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2267 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2268 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2269 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2271 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2272 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2274 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2276 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2277 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2278 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2279 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2280 same code linked statically.
2284 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2285 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2286 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2287 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2288 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2289 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2293 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2294 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2295 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2298 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2300 * New machines supported (host and target)
2302 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2303 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2304 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2306 * Almost SCO Unix support
2308 We had hoped to support:
2309 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2310 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2311 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2312 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2314 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2316 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2317 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2318 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2319 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2324 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2325 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2326 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2330 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2331 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2332 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2334 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2336 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2337 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2338 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2340 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2341 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2342 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2343 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2346 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2347 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2348 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2349 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2352 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2353 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2356 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2357 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2358 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2361 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2363 * Improved configuration
2365 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2366 Porting BFD is simpler.
2370 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2371 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2372 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2373 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2377 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2379 * New host supported (not target)
2381 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2384 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2386 * Multiple source language support
2388 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2389 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2390 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2391 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2392 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2393 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2397 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2398 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2399 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2400 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2402 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2403 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2404 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2406 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2407 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2411 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2412 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2413 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2414 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2417 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2419 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2420 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2421 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2422 examining core files.
2426 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2429 * New machines supported (host and target)
2431 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2432 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2433 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2435 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2437 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2439 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2441 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2442 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2443 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2445 * New remote interfaces
2451 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2455 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2457 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2458 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2459 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2460 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2461 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2462 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2463 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2464 stub on the target system.
2466 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2468 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2469 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2470 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2472 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2473 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2476 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2478 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2479 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2481 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2482 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2483 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2485 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2486 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2487 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2488 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2490 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2491 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2492 it is already running. Default is ON.
2494 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2495 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2496 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2497 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2500 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2501 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2502 or the value of the environment variable
2505 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2506 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2509 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2510 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2511 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2513 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2514 history expansion will be performed on
2515 command line input. The default is OFF.
2517 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2518 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2519 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2521 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2522 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2523 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2526 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2527 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2528 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2531 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2532 ``set width'' instead.
2534 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2535 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2536 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2537 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2539 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2542 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2545 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2548 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2551 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2553 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2554 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2555 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2559 * Support for Shared Libraries
2561 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2562 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2563 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2564 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2565 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2566 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2567 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2568 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2570 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2571 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2572 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2574 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2579 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2580 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2581 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2582 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2583 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2584 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2586 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2588 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2590 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2591 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2592 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2595 * C++ multiple inheritance
2597 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2600 * C++ exception handling
2602 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2603 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2604 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2607 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2608 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2609 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2611 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2612 current stack frame.
2615 * Minor command changes
2617 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2618 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2619 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2621 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2622 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2623 frames without printing.
2625 * New directory command
2627 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2628 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2629 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2630 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2631 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2633 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2635 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2638 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2639 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2640 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2641 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob