1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.4
8 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
9 only if it doesn't already have a value.
11 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
13 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
15 restart <n> Return the program state to a
16 previously saved state.
18 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
20 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
22 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
23 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
25 info forks List forks of the user program that
26 are available to be debugged.
28 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
29 forks of the user program that are
30 available to be debugged.
32 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
33 that are available to be debugged (and
34 kill the forked process).
36 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
37 that are available to be debugged (and
38 allow the process to continue).
42 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
46 The ARM rdi-share module.
48 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
50 * New native configurations
52 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
53 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
57 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
59 * New command line options
61 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
62 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
63 the child (debugged) program exited with.
64 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
65 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
66 specified multiple times and in conjunction
67 with the --command (-x) option.
69 * Deprecated commands removed
71 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
75 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
76 othernames set arm disassembler
77 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
78 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
79 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
82 * New BSD user-level threads support
84 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
85 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
88 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
89 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
90 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
92 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
93 are not yet supported.
95 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
96 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
98 * REMOVED configurations and files
100 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
101 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
102 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
104 * New "set print array-indexes" command
106 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
107 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
110 * VAX floating point support
112 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
114 * User-defined command support
116 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
117 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
118 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
120 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
122 * New command line option
124 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
127 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
129 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
130 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
131 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
132 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
133 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
135 * Internationalization
137 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
138 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
139 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
143 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
144 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
145 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
147 * New native configurations
149 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
153 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
154 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
156 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
158 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
159 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
160 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
163 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
164 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
165 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
177 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
178 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
180 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
182 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
183 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
184 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
194 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
196 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
198 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
199 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
202 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
204 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
205 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
206 IRIX long double values).
210 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
211 command. This problem has been fixed.
213 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
215 * Fix for ``many threads''
217 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
218 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
221 ptrace: No such process.
222 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
224 This problem has been fixed.
226 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
228 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
231 * New ``start'' command.
233 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
235 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
237 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
238 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
239 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
241 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
242 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
243 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
244 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
245 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
246 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
247 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
248 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
249 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
251 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
253 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
254 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
255 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
256 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
257 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
259 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
260 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
261 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
263 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
265 * New native configurations
267 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
268 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
269 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
270 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
271 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
272 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
273 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
275 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
277 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
278 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
279 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
280 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
281 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
282 work, was also included.
284 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
285 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
295 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
296 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
298 * REMOVED configurations and files
300 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
301 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
302 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
303 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
304 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
305 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
306 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
307 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
308 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
310 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
312 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
314 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
316 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
317 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
318 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
319 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
322 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
324 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
325 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
326 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
327 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
328 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
329 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
332 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
334 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
336 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
337 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
338 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
340 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
342 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
343 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
345 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
347 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
348 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
349 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
351 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
353 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
354 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
356 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
358 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
359 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
360 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
362 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
364 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
365 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
366 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
368 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
370 * Removed --with-mmalloc
372 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
373 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
375 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
377 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
378 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
379 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
380 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
382 * Revised SPARC target
384 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
385 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
386 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
387 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
388 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
392 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
393 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
394 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
397 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
399 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
400 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
403 * C++ nested types and namespaces
405 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
406 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
407 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
408 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
409 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
410 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
411 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
412 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
413 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
415 * New native configurations
417 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
418 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
419 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
420 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
421 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
423 * New debugging protocols
425 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
427 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
429 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
430 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
431 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
433 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
435 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
436 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
437 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
440 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
441 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
442 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
443 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
444 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
445 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
446 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
447 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
448 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
450 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
452 * REMOVED configurations and files
454 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
455 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
456 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
457 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
458 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
459 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
460 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
461 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
462 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
463 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
464 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
465 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
466 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
467 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
468 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
469 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
470 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
472 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
476 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
479 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
481 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
482 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
483 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
486 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
487 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
492 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
493 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
494 remote protocol documentation for details.
496 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
498 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
499 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
500 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
503 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
505 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
506 per-thread variables.
508 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
510 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
511 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
513 * Separate debug info.
515 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
516 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
517 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
518 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
519 and optional debug files.
521 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
523 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
524 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
527 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
528 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
532 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
533 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
534 considered "useable".
536 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
538 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
539 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
542 * GDB supports logging output to a file
544 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
545 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
547 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
549 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
550 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
553 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
555 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
556 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
560 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
561 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
562 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
563 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
564 data, for more informative profiling results.
566 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
568 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
569 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
570 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
572 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
575 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
576 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
577 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
578 in a subsequent -var-update.
580 * New native configurations.
582 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
584 * Multi-arched targets.
586 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
587 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
589 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
591 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
592 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
593 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
596 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
597 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
598 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
599 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
600 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
601 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
602 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
603 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
604 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
605 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
606 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
607 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
609 * REMOVED configurations and files
612 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
613 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
614 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
615 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
616 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
617 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
619 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
620 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
621 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
622 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
623 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
624 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
626 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
628 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
629 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
630 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
631 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
632 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
634 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
636 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
638 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
639 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
640 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
641 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
642 shared libs like mad''.
644 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
646 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
647 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
648 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
649 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
651 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
653 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
654 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
657 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
658 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
660 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
661 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
663 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
664 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
665 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
666 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
668 * Multi-arched targets.
670 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
671 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
673 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
674 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
675 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
679 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
682 * New native configurations
684 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
685 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
686 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
687 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
689 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
691 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
692 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
693 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
696 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
697 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
698 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
699 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
700 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
701 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
702 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
703 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
704 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
705 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
707 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
708 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
712 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
714 * REMOVED configurations and files
716 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
717 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
718 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
719 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
720 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
722 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
724 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
726 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
727 commands. The default is 1024.
729 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
731 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
733 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
735 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
736 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
737 from a file into memory (restore).
739 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
741 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
742 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
743 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
745 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
753 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
754 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
755 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
757 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
758 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
759 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
761 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
762 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
763 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
765 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
766 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
767 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
769 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
771 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
773 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
774 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
775 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
776 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
777 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
778 (notably embedded) targets.
780 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
782 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
783 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
784 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
785 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
787 * New command line option
789 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
791 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
793 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
794 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
795 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
796 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
797 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
798 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
799 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
800 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
801 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
802 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
804 * Changes in ARM configurations.
806 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
807 configuration is fully multi-arch.
809 * New native configurations
811 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
812 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
813 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
814 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
818 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
820 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
822 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
823 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
824 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
827 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
828 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
829 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
830 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
831 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
833 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
835 * REMOVED configurations and files
837 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
839 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
840 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
841 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
842 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
843 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
844 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
845 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
846 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
847 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
848 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
849 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
851 * Changes to command line processing
853 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
854 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
856 * Changes to key bindings
858 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
860 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
862 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
864 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
867 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
869 Numerous documentation fixes.
871 Numerous testsuite fixes.
873 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
875 * New native configurations
877 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
878 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
879 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
880 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
882 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
886 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
888 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
890 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
892 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
893 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
894 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
895 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
896 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
898 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
899 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
900 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
901 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
902 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
903 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
904 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
905 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
907 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
908 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
910 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
911 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
912 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
915 * REMOVED configurations and files
917 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
918 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
920 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
924 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
926 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
927 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
932 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
934 * The MI enabled by default.
936 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
937 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
938 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
939 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
940 which is now deprecated.
942 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
944 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
945 main features are supported:
947 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
949 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
952 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
954 - a Pascal expression parser.
956 However, some important features are not yet supported.
958 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
960 - there are some problems with boolean types;
962 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
963 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
965 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
967 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
969 * Changes in completion.
971 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
972 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
973 users expect at the shell prompt.
975 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
976 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
977 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
978 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
979 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
980 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
981 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
983 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
985 * New platform-independent commands:
987 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
988 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
989 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
991 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
993 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
994 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
995 many threads as your system allows you to have.
997 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
999 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1000 multi-threaded programs though.
1002 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1004 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1006 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1007 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1010 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1012 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1013 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1014 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1015 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1016 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1019 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1020 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1021 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1023 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1025 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1026 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1028 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1029 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1032 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1033 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1034 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1035 a given linear address.
1037 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1038 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1039 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1041 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1043 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1045 * Changes in documentation.
1047 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1048 Documentation License.
1050 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1053 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1055 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1058 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1059 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1060 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1062 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1064 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1065 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1066 contents of this file.
1070 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1072 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1074 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1076 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1077 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1078 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1079 greater level of detail.
1081 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1083 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1084 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1085 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1088 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1090 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1091 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1092 machines ``out of the box''.
1094 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1095 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1096 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1097 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1098 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1100 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1101 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1102 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1103 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1104 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1106 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1107 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1110 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1113 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1114 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1115 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1116 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1118 * New native configurations
1120 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1121 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1125 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1126 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1127 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1128 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1130 * OBSOLETE configurations
1132 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1133 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1135 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1138 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1139 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1140 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1141 be permanently REMOVED.
1143 * Gould support removed
1145 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1147 * New features for SVR4
1149 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1150 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1151 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1153 * Many C++ enhancements
1155 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1156 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1158 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1160 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1161 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1162 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1163 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1165 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1166 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1168 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1170 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1171 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1172 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1174 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1175 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1177 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1179 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1180 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1181 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1183 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1185 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1186 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1187 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1189 * ``apropos'' command added.
1191 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1192 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1193 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1197 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1198 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1199 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1200 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1201 enabled by configuring with:
1203 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1205 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1207 * New native configurations
1209 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1210 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1211 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1215 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1216 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1217 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1219 * OBSOLETE configurations
1221 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1223 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1224 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1225 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1226 be permanently REMOVED.
1230 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1231 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1232 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1233 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1234 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1235 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1236 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1241 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1243 * set extension-language
1245 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1246 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1247 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1248 set extension-language .c c++
1249 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1250 and their associated languages.
1252 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1254 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1255 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1256 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1260 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1261 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1263 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1264 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1266 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1267 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1268 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1269 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1270 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1271 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1272 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1273 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1275 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1276 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1277 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1278 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1282 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1283 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1284 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1285 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1286 for xdb and dbx commands.
1290 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1291 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1292 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1294 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1295 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1296 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1298 * Debugging across forks
1300 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1305 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1306 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1307 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1309 * GDB remote protocol additions
1311 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1312 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1313 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1314 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1316 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1317 full 64-bit address. The command
1319 set remoteaddresssize 32
1321 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1322 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1325 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1326 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1328 maint packet heythere
1330 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1331 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1334 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1335 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1336 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1338 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1340 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1341 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1342 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1344 * mask-address variable for Mips
1346 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1347 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1348 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1350 * Higher serial baud rates
1352 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1353 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1354 to achieve all of these rates.)
1358 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1359 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1362 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1364 * New native configurations
1366 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1367 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1368 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1369 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1370 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1371 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1372 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1376 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1377 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1378 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1379 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1380 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1381 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1382 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1383 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1384 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1385 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1386 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1388 * New debugging protocols
1390 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1391 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1392 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1393 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1394 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1395 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1399 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1400 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1405 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1406 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1408 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1410 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1411 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1412 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1414 * Live range splitting
1416 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1417 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1418 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1422 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1423 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1427 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1428 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1429 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1434 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1439 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1440 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1441 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1442 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1443 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1444 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1448 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1449 the symbol at the specified address.
1453 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1454 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1455 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1456 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1457 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1461 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1462 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1463 of most MIPS variants.
1467 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1468 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1469 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1473 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1474 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1475 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1476 the possible architectures.
1478 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1480 * New native configurations
1482 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1483 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1484 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1485 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1486 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1487 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1491 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1492 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1493 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1494 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1495 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1497 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1501 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1502 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1503 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1504 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1505 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1509 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1511 * Windows 95/NT native
1513 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1514 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1515 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1516 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1517 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1519 * dont-repeat command
1521 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1522 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1523 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1524 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1526 * Send break instead of ^C
1528 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1529 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1530 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1532 * Remote protocol timeout
1534 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1535 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1536 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1538 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1540 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1541 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1542 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1543 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1544 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1546 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1547 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1548 automatically on hpux10.
1550 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1552 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1554 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1556 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1557 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1558 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1559 every character. The default value is 1050.
1561 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1563 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1564 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1565 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1566 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1567 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1568 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1570 * Speedups for remote debugging
1572 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1573 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1574 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1576 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1578 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1579 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1581 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1583 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1585 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1586 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1588 * Remote targets use caching
1590 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1591 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1592 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1593 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1594 off' turns the the data cache off.
1596 * Remote targets may have threads
1598 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1599 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1600 gdb/remote.c for details.
1604 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1605 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1606 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1607 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1608 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1609 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1610 sequence is something like
1612 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1614 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1618 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1619 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1620 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1621 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1622 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1623 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1624 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1625 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1629 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1630 but does simplify configuration and building.
1634 GDB now supports hpux10.
1636 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1638 * New native configurations
1640 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1641 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1642 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1643 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1647 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1648 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1649 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1650 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1653 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1655 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1656 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1657 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1658 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1659 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1661 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1663 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1664 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1667 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1669 To execute the command use:
1672 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1673 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1674 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1676 * New `if' and `while' commands
1678 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1679 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1680 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1681 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1682 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1683 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1684 if the expression is zero.
1686 * Fortran source language mode
1688 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1689 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1690 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1691 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1694 * Better HPUX support
1696 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1697 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1698 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1699 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1700 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1706 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1707 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1713 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1714 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1717 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1718 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1720 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1722 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1723 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1724 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1725 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1726 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1727 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1729 * New DOS host serial code
1731 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1732 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1735 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1737 * New "complete" command
1739 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1740 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1742 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1744 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1745 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1747 * Breakpoint hit counts
1749 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1750 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1751 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1752 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1753 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1756 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1758 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1759 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1760 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1762 * Shared library breakpoints
1764 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1765 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1767 * Hardware watchpoints
1769 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1770 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1772 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1776 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1777 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1779 * Improved Irix 5 support
1781 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1783 * Improved HPPA support
1785 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1787 * New native configurations
1789 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1790 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1791 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1792 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1796 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1797 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1800 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1802 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1803 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1807 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1808 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1810 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1812 * Irix 5 is now supported
1816 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1817 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1818 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1819 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1820 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1823 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1825 * User visible changes:
1829 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1830 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1831 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1832 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1833 debugging info for the mips target).
1835 * DEC Alpha native support
1837 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1838 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1839 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1840 Alpha-specific notes.
1842 * Preliminary thread implementation
1844 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1846 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1848 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1849 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1852 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1854 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1855 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1856 call methods, ...etc.
1858 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1860 * User visible changes:
1862 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1863 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1864 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1865 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1867 Filename completion now works.
1869 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1870 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1871 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1873 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1874 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1875 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1876 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1877 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1881 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1882 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1885 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1889 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1890 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1891 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1895 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1896 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1897 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1898 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1899 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1903 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1904 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1905 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1907 * New targets supported
1909 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1910 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1911 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1912 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1913 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1915 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1916 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1917 GO32 memory extender.
1919 * New remote protocols
1921 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1923 * New source languages supported
1925 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1926 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1927 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1930 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1932 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1934 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1935 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1936 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1937 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1938 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1939 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1941 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1943 * Faster and better demangling
1945 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1946 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1947 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1948 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1949 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1950 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1953 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1954 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1955 compiler does not actually implement.
1957 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1959 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1960 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1961 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1962 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1963 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1964 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1967 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1968 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1970 * Improved configure script
1972 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1973 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1974 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1975 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1977 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1978 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1979 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1980 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1981 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1982 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1984 * Documentation improvements
1986 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1987 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1988 before submitting changes.
1990 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1991 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1992 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1993 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1994 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1996 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1997 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1998 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1999 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2000 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2001 around this problem.
2005 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2006 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2007 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2010 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2011 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2013 * New native hosts supported
2015 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2016 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2018 * New targets supported
2020 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2022 * New file formats supported
2024 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2025 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2029 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2031 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2032 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2034 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2035 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2036 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2038 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2039 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2041 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2042 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2043 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2046 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2047 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2048 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2049 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2050 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2052 * Internal improvements
2054 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2055 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2057 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2058 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2059 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2060 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2061 shared code that handles any of them.
2063 * New command line options
2065 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2069 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2070 General Public License.
2072 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2074 * Host/native/target split
2076 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2077 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2078 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2079 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2080 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2082 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2083 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2084 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2085 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2086 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2087 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2088 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2090 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2091 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2092 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2094 * New hosts supported
2096 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2097 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2098 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2100 * New targets supported
2102 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2103 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2105 * New native hosts supported
2107 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2108 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2109 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2111 * New file formats supported
2113 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2114 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2115 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2119 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2120 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2121 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2123 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2125 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2126 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2127 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2128 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2132 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2133 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2134 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2136 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2140 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2141 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2144 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2145 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2147 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2148 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2149 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2150 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2151 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2152 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2154 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2155 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2156 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2157 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2161 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2162 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2163 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2164 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2165 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2167 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2168 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2169 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2170 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2174 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2175 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2176 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2177 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2178 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2179 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2180 each instruction being stepped through.
2182 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2183 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2185 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2186 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2187 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2188 processor with a serial port.
2192 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2193 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2194 supported, and what files each one uses.
2198 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2199 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2200 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2201 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2203 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2204 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2205 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2206 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2210 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2211 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2212 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2213 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2214 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2215 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2217 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2220 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2222 * Better support for C++ function names
2224 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2225 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2226 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2227 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2228 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2230 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2231 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2232 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2233 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2234 for the list of formats.
2236 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2238 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2239 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2240 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2241 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2242 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2243 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2246 * New 'maintenance' command
2248 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2249 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2250 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2252 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2253 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2254 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2255 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2256 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2257 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2259 The following commands are new:
2261 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2262 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2263 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2265 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2267 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2268 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2269 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2270 read after argv processing.
2272 * New hosts supported
2274 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2276 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2278 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2279 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2280 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2281 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2282 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2285 * New targets supported
2287 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2289 * More smarts about finding #include files
2291 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2292 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2293 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2294 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2295 the one that contains your sources.
2297 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2298 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2299 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2301 * Interesting infernals change
2303 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2304 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2305 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2306 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2308 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2310 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2311 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2312 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2314 See the ChangeLog for details.
2316 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2318 * New machines supported (host and target)
2320 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2322 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2324 * New malloc package
2326 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2327 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2328 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2329 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2330 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2331 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2335 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2336 'help info proc' for details.
2338 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2340 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2341 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2344 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2346 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2347 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2348 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2349 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2350 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2351 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2353 * Cross byte order fixes
2355 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2356 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2358 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2360 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2361 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2362 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2363 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2364 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2365 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2366 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2367 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2368 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2369 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2371 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2372 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2373 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2374 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2376 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2377 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2378 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2381 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2383 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2384 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2385 shared across multiple host platforms.
2387 * longjmp() handling
2389 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2390 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2391 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2392 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2396 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2397 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2402 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2403 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2404 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2406 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2408 * New machines supported (host and target)
2410 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2412 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2413 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2415 * New machines supported (target)
2417 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2421 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2422 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2423 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2425 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2426 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2427 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2428 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2429 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2432 * New features for SVR4
2434 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2435 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2436 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2438 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2439 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2440 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2442 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2443 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2445 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2447 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2448 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2449 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2450 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2451 same code linked statically.
2455 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2456 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2457 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2458 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2459 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2460 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2464 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2465 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2466 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2469 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2471 * New machines supported (host and target)
2473 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2474 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2475 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2477 * Almost SCO Unix support
2479 We had hoped to support:
2480 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2481 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2482 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2483 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2485 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2487 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2488 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2489 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2490 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2495 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2496 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2497 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2501 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2502 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2503 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2505 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2507 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2508 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2509 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2511 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2512 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2513 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2514 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2517 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2518 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2519 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2520 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2523 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2524 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2527 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2528 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2529 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2532 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2534 * Improved configuration
2536 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2537 Porting BFD is simpler.
2541 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2542 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2543 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2544 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2548 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2550 * New host supported (not target)
2552 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2555 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2557 * Multiple source language support
2559 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2560 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2561 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2562 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2563 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2564 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2568 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2569 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2570 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2571 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2573 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2574 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2575 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2577 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2578 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2582 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2583 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2584 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2585 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2588 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2590 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2591 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2592 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2593 examining core files.
2597 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2600 * New machines supported (host and target)
2602 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2603 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2604 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2606 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2608 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2610 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2612 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2613 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2614 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2616 * New remote interfaces
2622 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2626 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2628 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2629 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2630 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2631 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2632 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2633 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2634 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2635 stub on the target system.
2637 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2639 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2640 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2641 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2643 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2644 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2647 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2649 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2650 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2652 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2653 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2654 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2656 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2657 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2658 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2659 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2661 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2662 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2663 it is already running. Default is ON.
2665 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2666 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2667 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2668 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2671 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2672 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2673 or the value of the environment variable
2676 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2677 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2680 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2681 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2682 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2684 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2685 history expansion will be performed on
2686 command line input. The default is OFF.
2688 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2689 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2690 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2692 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2693 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2694 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2697 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2698 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2699 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2702 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2703 ``set width'' instead.
2705 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2706 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2707 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2708 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2710 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2713 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2716 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2719 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2722 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2724 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2725 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2726 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2730 * Support for Shared Libraries
2732 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2733 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2734 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2735 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2736 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2737 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2738 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2739 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2741 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2742 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2743 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2745 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2750 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2751 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2752 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2753 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2754 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2755 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2757 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2759 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2761 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2762 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2763 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2766 * C++ multiple inheritance
2768 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2771 * C++ exception handling
2773 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2774 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2775 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2778 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2779 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2780 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2782 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2783 current stack frame.
2786 * Minor command changes
2788 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2789 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2790 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2792 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2793 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2794 frames without printing.
2796 * New directory command
2798 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2799 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2800 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2801 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2802 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2804 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2806 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2809 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2810 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2811 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2812 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob