1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.5
8 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
10 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
11 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
16 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
17 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
18 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
19 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
22 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
26 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
28 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
32 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
33 only if it doesn't already have a value.
35 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
37 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
39 restart <n> Return the program state to a
40 previously saved state.
42 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
44 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
46 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
47 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
49 info forks List forks of the user program that
50 are available to be debugged.
52 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
53 forks of the user program that are
54 available to be debugged.
56 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
57 that are available to be debugged (and
58 kill the forked process).
60 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
61 that are available to be debugged (and
62 allow the process to continue).
66 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
68 * Improved Windows host support
70 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
71 native console support, and remote communications using either
72 network sockets or serial ports.
74 * Improved Modula-2 language support
76 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
77 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
78 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
79 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
80 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
81 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
85 The ARM rdi-share module.
87 The Netware NLM debug server.
89 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
91 * New native configurations
93 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
94 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
98 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
100 * New command line options
102 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
103 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
104 the child (debugged) program exited with.
105 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
106 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
107 specified multiple times and in conjunction
108 with the --command (-x) option.
110 * Deprecated commands removed
112 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
116 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
117 othernames set arm disassembler
118 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
119 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
120 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
123 * New BSD user-level threads support
125 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
126 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
129 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
130 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
131 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
133 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
134 are not yet supported.
136 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
137 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
139 * REMOVED configurations and files
141 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
142 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
143 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
145 * New "set print array-indexes" command
147 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
148 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
151 * VAX floating point support
153 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
155 * User-defined command support
157 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
158 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
159 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
161 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
163 * New command line option
165 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
168 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
170 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
171 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
172 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
173 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
174 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
176 * Internationalization
178 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
179 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
180 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
184 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
185 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
186 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
188 * New native configurations
190 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
194 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
195 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
197 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
199 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
200 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
201 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
204 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
205 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
206 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
218 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
219 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
221 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
223 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
224 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
225 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
235 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
237 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
239 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
240 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
243 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
245 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
246 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
247 IRIX long double values).
251 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
252 command. This problem has been fixed.
254 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
256 * Fix for ``many threads''
258 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
259 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
262 ptrace: No such process.
263 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
265 This problem has been fixed.
267 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
269 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
272 * New ``start'' command.
274 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
276 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
278 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
279 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
280 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
282 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
283 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
284 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
285 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
286 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
287 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
288 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
289 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
290 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
292 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
294 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
295 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
296 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
297 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
298 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
300 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
301 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
302 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
304 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
306 * New native configurations
308 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
309 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
310 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
311 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
312 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
313 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
314 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
316 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
318 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
319 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
320 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
321 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
322 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
323 work, was also included.
325 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
326 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
336 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
337 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
339 * REMOVED configurations and files
341 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
342 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
343 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
344 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
345 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
346 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
347 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
348 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
349 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
351 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
353 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
355 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
357 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
358 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
359 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
360 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
363 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
365 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
366 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
367 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
368 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
369 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
370 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
373 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
375 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
377 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
378 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
379 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
381 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
383 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
384 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
386 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
388 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
389 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
390 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
392 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
394 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
395 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
397 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
399 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
400 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
401 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
403 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
405 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
406 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
407 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
409 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
411 * Removed --with-mmalloc
413 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
414 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
416 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
418 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
419 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
420 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
421 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
423 * Revised SPARC target
425 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
426 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
427 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
428 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
429 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
433 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
434 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
435 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
438 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
440 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
441 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
444 * C++ nested types and namespaces
446 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
447 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
448 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
449 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
450 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
451 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
452 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
453 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
454 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
456 * New native configurations
458 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
459 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
460 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
461 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
462 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
464 * New debugging protocols
466 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
468 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
470 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
471 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
472 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
474 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
476 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
477 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
478 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
481 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
482 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
483 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
484 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
485 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
486 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
487 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
488 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
489 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
491 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
493 * REMOVED configurations and files
495 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
496 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
497 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
498 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
499 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
500 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
501 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
502 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
503 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
504 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
505 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
506 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
507 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
508 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
509 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
510 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
511 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
513 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
517 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
520 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
522 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
523 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
524 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
527 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
528 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
533 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
534 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
535 remote protocol documentation for details.
537 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
539 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
540 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
541 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
544 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
546 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
547 per-thread variables.
549 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
551 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
552 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
554 * Separate debug info.
556 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
557 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
558 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
559 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
560 and optional debug files.
562 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
564 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
565 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
568 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
569 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
573 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
574 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
575 considered "useable".
577 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
579 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
580 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
583 * GDB supports logging output to a file
585 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
586 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
588 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
590 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
591 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
594 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
596 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
597 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
601 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
602 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
603 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
604 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
605 data, for more informative profiling results.
607 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
609 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
610 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
611 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
613 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
616 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
617 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
618 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
619 in a subsequent -var-update.
621 * New native configurations.
623 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
625 * Multi-arched targets.
627 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
628 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
630 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
632 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
633 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
634 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
637 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
638 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
639 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
640 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
641 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
642 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
643 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
644 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
645 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
646 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
647 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
648 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
650 * REMOVED configurations and files
653 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
654 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
655 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
656 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
657 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
658 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
660 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
661 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
662 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
663 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
664 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
665 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
667 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
669 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
670 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
671 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
672 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
673 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
675 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
677 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
679 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
680 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
681 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
682 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
683 shared libs like mad''.
685 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
687 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
688 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
689 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
690 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
692 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
694 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
695 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
698 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
699 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
701 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
702 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
704 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
705 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
706 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
707 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
709 * Multi-arched targets.
711 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
712 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
714 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
715 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
716 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
720 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
723 * New native configurations
725 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
726 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
727 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
728 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
730 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
732 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
733 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
734 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
737 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
738 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
739 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
740 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
741 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
742 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
743 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
744 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
745 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
746 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
748 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
749 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
753 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
755 * REMOVED configurations and files
757 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
758 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
759 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
760 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
761 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
763 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
765 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
767 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
768 commands. The default is 1024.
770 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
772 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
774 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
776 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
777 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
778 from a file into memory (restore).
780 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
782 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
783 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
784 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
786 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
794 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
795 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
796 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
798 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
799 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
800 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
802 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
803 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
804 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
806 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
807 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
808 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
810 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
812 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
814 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
815 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
816 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
817 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
818 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
819 (notably embedded) targets.
821 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
823 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
824 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
825 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
826 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
828 * New command line option
830 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
832 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
834 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
835 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
836 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
837 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
838 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
839 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
840 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
841 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
842 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
843 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
845 * Changes in ARM configurations.
847 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
848 configuration is fully multi-arch.
850 * New native configurations
852 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
853 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
854 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
855 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
859 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
861 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
863 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
864 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
865 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
868 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
869 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
870 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
871 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
872 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
874 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
876 * REMOVED configurations and files
878 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
880 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
881 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
882 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
883 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
884 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
885 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
886 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
887 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
888 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
889 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
890 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
892 * Changes to command line processing
894 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
895 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
897 * Changes to key bindings
899 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
901 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
903 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
905 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
908 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
910 Numerous documentation fixes.
912 Numerous testsuite fixes.
914 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
916 * New native configurations
918 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
919 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
920 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
921 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
923 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
927 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
929 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
931 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
933 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
934 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
935 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
936 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
937 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
939 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
940 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
941 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
942 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
943 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
944 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
945 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
946 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
948 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
949 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
951 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
952 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
953 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
956 * REMOVED configurations and files
958 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
959 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
961 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
965 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
967 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
968 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
973 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
975 * The MI enabled by default.
977 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
978 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
979 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
980 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
981 which is now deprecated.
983 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
985 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
986 main features are supported:
988 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
990 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
993 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
995 - a Pascal expression parser.
997 However, some important features are not yet supported.
999 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1001 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1003 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1004 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1006 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1008 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1010 * Changes in completion.
1012 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1013 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1014 users expect at the shell prompt.
1016 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1017 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1018 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1019 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1020 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1021 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1022 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1024 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1026 * New platform-independent commands:
1028 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1029 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1030 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1032 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1034 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1035 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1036 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1038 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1040 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1041 multi-threaded programs though.
1043 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1045 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1047 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1048 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1051 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1053 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1054 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1055 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1056 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1057 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1060 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1061 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1062 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1064 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1066 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1067 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1069 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1070 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1073 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1074 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1075 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1076 a given linear address.
1078 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1079 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1080 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1082 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1084 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1086 * Changes in documentation.
1088 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1089 Documentation License.
1091 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1094 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1096 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1099 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1100 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1101 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1103 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1105 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1106 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1107 contents of this file.
1111 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1113 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1115 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1117 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1118 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1119 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1120 greater level of detail.
1122 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1124 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1125 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1126 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1129 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1131 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1132 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1133 machines ``out of the box''.
1135 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1136 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1137 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1138 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1139 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1141 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1142 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1143 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1144 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1145 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1147 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1148 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1151 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1154 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1155 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1156 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1157 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1159 * New native configurations
1161 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1162 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1166 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1167 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1168 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1169 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1171 * OBSOLETE configurations
1173 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1174 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1176 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1179 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1180 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1181 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1182 be permanently REMOVED.
1184 * Gould support removed
1186 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1188 * New features for SVR4
1190 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1191 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1192 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1194 * Many C++ enhancements
1196 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1197 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1199 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1201 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1202 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1203 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1204 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1206 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1207 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1209 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1211 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1212 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1213 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1215 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1216 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1218 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1220 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1221 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1222 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1224 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1226 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1227 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1228 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1230 * ``apropos'' command added.
1232 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1233 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1234 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1238 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1239 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1240 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1241 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1242 enabled by configuring with:
1244 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1246 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1248 * New native configurations
1250 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1251 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1252 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1256 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1257 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1258 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1260 * OBSOLETE configurations
1262 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1264 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1265 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1266 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1267 be permanently REMOVED.
1271 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1272 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1273 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1274 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1275 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1276 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1277 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1282 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1284 * set extension-language
1286 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1287 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1288 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1289 set extension-language .c c++
1290 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1291 and their associated languages.
1293 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1295 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1296 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1297 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1301 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1302 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1304 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1305 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1307 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1308 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1309 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1310 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1311 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1312 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1313 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1314 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1316 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1317 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1318 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1319 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1323 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1324 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1325 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1326 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1327 for xdb and dbx commands.
1331 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1332 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1333 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1335 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1336 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1337 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1339 * Debugging across forks
1341 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1346 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1347 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1348 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1350 * GDB remote protocol additions
1352 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1353 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1354 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1355 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1357 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1358 full 64-bit address. The command
1360 set remoteaddresssize 32
1362 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1363 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1366 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1367 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1369 maint packet heythere
1371 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1372 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1375 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1376 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1377 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1379 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1381 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1382 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1383 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1385 * mask-address variable for Mips
1387 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1388 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1389 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1391 * Higher serial baud rates
1393 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1394 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1395 to achieve all of these rates.)
1399 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1400 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1403 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1405 * New native configurations
1407 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1408 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1409 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1410 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1411 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1412 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1413 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1417 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1418 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1419 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1420 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1421 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1422 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1423 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1424 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1425 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1426 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1427 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1429 * New debugging protocols
1431 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1432 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1433 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1434 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1435 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1436 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1440 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1441 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1446 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1447 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1449 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1451 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1452 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1453 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1455 * Live range splitting
1457 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1458 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1459 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1463 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1464 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1468 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1469 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1470 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1475 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1480 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1481 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1482 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1483 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1484 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1485 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1489 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1490 the symbol at the specified address.
1494 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1495 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1496 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1497 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1498 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1502 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1503 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1504 of most MIPS variants.
1508 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1509 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1510 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1514 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1515 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1516 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1517 the possible architectures.
1519 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1521 * New native configurations
1523 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1524 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1525 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1526 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1527 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1528 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1532 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1533 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1534 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1535 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1536 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1538 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1542 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1543 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1544 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1545 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1546 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1550 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1552 * Windows 95/NT native
1554 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1555 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1556 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1557 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1558 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1560 * dont-repeat command
1562 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1563 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1564 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1565 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1567 * Send break instead of ^C
1569 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1570 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1571 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1573 * Remote protocol timeout
1575 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1576 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1577 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1579 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1581 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1582 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1583 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1584 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1585 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1587 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1588 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1589 automatically on hpux10.
1591 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1593 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1595 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1597 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1598 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1599 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1600 every character. The default value is 1050.
1602 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1604 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1605 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1606 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1607 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1608 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1609 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1611 * Speedups for remote debugging
1613 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1614 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1615 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1617 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1619 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1620 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1622 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1624 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1626 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1627 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1629 * Remote targets use caching
1631 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1632 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1633 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1634 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1635 off' turns the the data cache off.
1637 * Remote targets may have threads
1639 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1640 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1641 gdb/remote.c for details.
1645 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1646 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1647 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1648 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1649 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1650 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1651 sequence is something like
1653 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1655 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1659 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1660 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1661 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1662 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1663 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1664 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1665 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1666 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1670 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1671 but does simplify configuration and building.
1675 GDB now supports hpux10.
1677 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1679 * New native configurations
1681 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1682 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1683 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1684 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1688 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1689 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1690 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1691 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1694 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1696 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1697 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1698 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1699 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1700 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1702 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1704 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1705 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1708 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1710 To execute the command use:
1713 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1714 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1715 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1717 * New `if' and `while' commands
1719 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1720 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1721 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1722 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1723 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1724 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1725 if the expression is zero.
1727 * Fortran source language mode
1729 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1730 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1731 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1732 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1735 * Better HPUX support
1737 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1738 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1739 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1740 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1741 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1747 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1748 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1754 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1755 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1758 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1759 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1761 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1763 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1764 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1765 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1766 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1767 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1768 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1770 * New DOS host serial code
1772 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1773 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1776 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1778 * New "complete" command
1780 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1781 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1783 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1785 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1786 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1788 * Breakpoint hit counts
1790 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1791 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1792 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1793 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1794 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1797 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1799 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1800 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1801 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1803 * Shared library breakpoints
1805 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1806 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1808 * Hardware watchpoints
1810 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1811 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1813 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1817 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1818 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1820 * Improved Irix 5 support
1822 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1824 * Improved HPPA support
1826 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1828 * New native configurations
1830 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1831 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1832 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1833 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1837 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1838 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1841 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1843 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1844 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1848 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1849 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1851 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1853 * Irix 5 is now supported
1857 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1858 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1859 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1860 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1861 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1864 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1866 * User visible changes:
1870 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1871 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1872 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1873 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1874 debugging info for the mips target).
1876 * DEC Alpha native support
1878 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1879 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1880 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1881 Alpha-specific notes.
1883 * Preliminary thread implementation
1885 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1887 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1889 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1890 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1893 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1895 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1896 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1897 call methods, ...etc.
1899 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1901 * User visible changes:
1903 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1904 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1905 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1906 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1908 Filename completion now works.
1910 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1911 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1912 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1914 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1915 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1916 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1917 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1918 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1922 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1923 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1926 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1930 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1931 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1932 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1936 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1937 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1938 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1939 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1940 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1944 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1945 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1946 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1948 * New targets supported
1950 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1951 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1952 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1953 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1954 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1956 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1957 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1958 GO32 memory extender.
1960 * New remote protocols
1962 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1964 * New source languages supported
1966 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1967 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1968 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1971 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1973 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1975 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1976 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1977 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1978 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1979 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1980 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1982 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1984 * Faster and better demangling
1986 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1987 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1988 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1989 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1990 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1991 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1994 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1995 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1996 compiler does not actually implement.
1998 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2000 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2001 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2002 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2003 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2004 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2005 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2008 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2009 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2011 * Improved configure script
2013 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2014 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2015 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2016 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2018 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2019 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2020 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2021 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2022 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2023 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2025 * Documentation improvements
2027 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2028 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2029 before submitting changes.
2031 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2032 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2033 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2034 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2035 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2037 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2038 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2039 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2040 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2041 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2042 around this problem.
2046 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2047 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2048 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2051 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2052 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2054 * New native hosts supported
2056 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2057 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2059 * New targets supported
2061 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2063 * New file formats supported
2065 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2066 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2070 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2072 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2073 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2075 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2076 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2077 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2079 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2080 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2082 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2083 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2084 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2087 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2088 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2089 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2090 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2091 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2093 * Internal improvements
2095 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2096 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2098 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2099 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2100 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2101 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2102 shared code that handles any of them.
2104 * New command line options
2106 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2110 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2111 General Public License.
2113 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2115 * Host/native/target split
2117 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2118 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2119 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2120 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2121 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2123 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2124 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2125 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2126 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2127 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2128 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2129 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2131 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2132 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2133 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2135 * New hosts supported
2137 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2138 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2139 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2141 * New targets supported
2143 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2144 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2146 * New native hosts supported
2148 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2149 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2150 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2152 * New file formats supported
2154 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2155 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2156 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2160 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2161 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2162 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2164 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2166 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2167 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2168 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2169 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2173 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2174 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2175 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2177 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2181 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2182 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2185 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2186 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2188 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2189 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2190 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2191 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2192 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2193 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2195 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2196 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2197 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2198 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2202 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2203 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2204 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2205 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2206 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2208 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2209 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2210 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2211 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2215 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2216 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2217 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2218 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2219 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2220 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2221 each instruction being stepped through.
2223 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2224 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2226 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2227 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2228 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2229 processor with a serial port.
2233 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2234 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2235 supported, and what files each one uses.
2239 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2240 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2241 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2242 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2244 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2245 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2246 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2247 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2251 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2252 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2253 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2254 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2255 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2256 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2258 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2261 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2263 * Better support for C++ function names
2265 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2266 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2267 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2268 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2269 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2271 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2272 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2273 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2274 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2275 for the list of formats.
2277 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2279 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2280 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2281 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2282 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2283 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2284 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2287 * New 'maintenance' command
2289 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2290 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2291 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2293 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2294 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2295 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2296 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2297 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2298 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2300 The following commands are new:
2302 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2303 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2304 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2306 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2308 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2309 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2310 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2311 read after argv processing.
2313 * New hosts supported
2315 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2317 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2319 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2320 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2321 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2322 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2323 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2326 * New targets supported
2328 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2330 * More smarts about finding #include files
2332 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2333 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2334 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2335 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2336 the one that contains your sources.
2338 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2339 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2340 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2342 * Interesting infernals change
2344 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2345 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2346 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2347 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2349 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2351 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2352 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2353 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2355 See the ChangeLog for details.
2357 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2359 * New machines supported (host and target)
2361 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2363 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2365 * New malloc package
2367 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2368 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2369 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2370 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2371 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2372 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2376 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2377 'help info proc' for details.
2379 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2381 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2382 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2385 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2387 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2388 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2389 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2390 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2391 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2392 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2394 * Cross byte order fixes
2396 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2397 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2399 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2401 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2402 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2403 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2404 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2405 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2406 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2407 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2408 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2409 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2410 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2412 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2413 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2414 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2415 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2417 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2418 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2419 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2422 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2424 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2425 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2426 shared across multiple host platforms.
2428 * longjmp() handling
2430 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2431 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2432 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2433 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2437 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2438 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2443 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2444 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2445 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2447 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2449 * New machines supported (host and target)
2451 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2453 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2454 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2456 * New machines supported (target)
2458 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2462 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2463 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2464 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2466 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2467 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2468 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2469 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2470 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2473 * New features for SVR4
2475 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2476 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2477 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2479 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2480 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2481 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2483 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2484 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2486 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2488 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2489 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2490 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2491 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2492 same code linked statically.
2496 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2497 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2498 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2499 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2500 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2501 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2505 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2506 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2507 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2510 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2512 * New machines supported (host and target)
2514 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2515 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2516 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2518 * Almost SCO Unix support
2520 We had hoped to support:
2521 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2522 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2523 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2524 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2526 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2528 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2529 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2530 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2531 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2536 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2537 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2538 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2542 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2543 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2544 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2546 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2548 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2549 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2550 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2552 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2553 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2554 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2555 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2558 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2559 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2560 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2561 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2564 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2565 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2568 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2569 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2570 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2573 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2575 * Improved configuration
2577 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2578 Porting BFD is simpler.
2582 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2583 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2584 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2585 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2589 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2591 * New host supported (not target)
2593 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2596 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2598 * Multiple source language support
2600 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2601 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2602 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2603 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2604 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2605 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2609 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2610 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2611 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2612 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2614 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2615 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2616 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2618 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2619 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2623 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2624 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2625 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2626 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2629 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2631 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2632 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2633 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2634 examining core files.
2638 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2641 * New machines supported (host and target)
2643 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2644 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2645 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2647 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2649 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2651 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2653 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2654 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2655 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2657 * New remote interfaces
2663 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2667 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2669 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2670 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2671 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2672 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2673 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2674 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2675 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2676 stub on the target system.
2678 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2680 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2681 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2682 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2684 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2685 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2688 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2690 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2691 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2693 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2694 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2695 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2697 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2698 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2699 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2700 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2702 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2703 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2704 it is already running. Default is ON.
2706 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2707 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2708 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2709 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2712 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2713 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2714 or the value of the environment variable
2717 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2718 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2721 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2722 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2723 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2725 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2726 history expansion will be performed on
2727 command line input. The default is OFF.
2729 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2730 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2731 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2733 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2734 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2735 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2738 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2739 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2740 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2743 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2744 ``set width'' instead.
2746 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2747 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2748 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2749 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2751 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2754 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2757 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2760 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2763 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2765 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2766 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2767 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2771 * Support for Shared Libraries
2773 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2774 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2775 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2776 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2777 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2778 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2779 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2780 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2782 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2783 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2784 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2786 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2791 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2792 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2793 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2794 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2795 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2796 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2798 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2800 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2802 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2803 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2804 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2807 * C++ multiple inheritance
2809 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2812 * C++ exception handling
2814 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2815 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2816 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2819 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2820 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2821 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2823 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2824 current stack frame.
2827 * Minor command changes
2829 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2830 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2831 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2833 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2834 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2835 frames without printing.
2837 * New directory command
2839 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2840 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2841 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2842 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2843 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2845 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2847 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2850 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2851 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2852 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2853 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob