1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.1:
6 * New native configurations
8 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
10 * REMOVED configurations and files
12 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
14 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
15 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
16 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
17 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
18 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
19 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
20 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
21 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
22 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
23 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
25 * Changes to command line processing
27 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
28 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
30 * Changes to key bindings
32 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
34 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
36 * New native configurations
38 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
39 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
40 MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
41 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
43 s390 and s390x Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
47 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
49 UltraSparc running Linux sparc64-*-linux*
51 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
53 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
54 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
55 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
56 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
57 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
59 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
60 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
61 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
62 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
63 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
64 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
65 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
66 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
68 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
69 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
71 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
72 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
73 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
76 * REMOVED configurations and files
78 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
81 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
85 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
87 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
88 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
93 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
95 * The MI enabled by default.
97 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
98 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
99 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
100 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
101 which is now deprecated.
103 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
105 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
106 main features are supported:
108 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
110 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
113 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
115 - a Pascal expression parser.
117 However, some important features are not yet supported.
119 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
121 - there are some problems with boolean types;
123 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
124 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
126 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
128 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
130 * Changes in completion.
132 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
133 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
134 users expect at the shell prompt.
136 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
137 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
138 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
139 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
140 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
141 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
142 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
144 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
146 * New platform-independent commands:
148 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
149 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
150 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
152 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
154 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
155 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
156 many threads as your system allows you to have.
158 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
160 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
161 multi-threaded programs though.
163 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
165 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
167 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
168 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
171 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
173 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
174 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
175 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
176 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
177 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
180 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
181 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
182 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
184 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
186 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
187 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
189 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
190 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
193 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
194 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
195 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
196 a given linear address.
198 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
199 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
200 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
202 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
204 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
206 * Changes in documentation.
208 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
209 Documentation License.
211 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
214 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
216 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
219 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
220 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
221 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
223 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
225 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
226 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
227 contents of this file.
231 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
233 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
235 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
237 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
238 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
239 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
240 greater level of detail.
242 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
244 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
245 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
246 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
249 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
251 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
252 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
253 machines ``out of the box''.
255 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
256 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
257 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
258 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
259 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
261 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
262 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
263 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
264 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
265 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
267 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
268 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
271 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
274 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
275 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
276 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
277 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
279 * New native configurations
281 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
282 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
286 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
287 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
288 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
289 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
291 * OBSOLETE configurations
293 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
294 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
296 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
299 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
300 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
301 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
302 be permanently REMOVED.
304 * Gould support removed
306 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
308 * New features for SVR4
310 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
311 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
312 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
314 * Many C++ enhancements
316 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
317 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
319 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
321 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
322 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
323 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
324 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
326 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
327 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
329 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
331 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
332 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
333 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
335 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
336 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
338 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
340 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
341 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
342 include ``set remote P-packet''.
344 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
346 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
347 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
348 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
350 * ``apropos'' command added.
352 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
353 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
354 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
358 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
359 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
360 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
361 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
362 enabled by configuring with:
364 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
366 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
368 * New native configurations
370 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
371 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
372 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
376 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
377 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
378 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
380 * OBSOLETE configurations
382 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
384 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
385 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
386 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
387 be permanently REMOVED.
391 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
392 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
393 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
394 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
395 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
396 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
397 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
402 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
404 * set extension-language
406 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
407 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
408 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
409 set extension-language .c c++
410 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
411 and their associated languages.
413 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
415 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
416 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
417 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
421 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
422 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
424 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
425 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
427 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
428 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
429 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
430 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
431 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
432 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
433 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
434 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
436 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
437 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
438 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
439 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
443 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
444 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
445 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
446 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
447 for xdb and dbx commands.
451 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
452 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
453 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
455 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
456 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
457 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
459 * Debugging across forks
461 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
466 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
467 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
468 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
470 * GDB remote protocol additions
472 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
473 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
474 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
475 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
477 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
478 full 64-bit address. The command
480 set remoteaddresssize 32
482 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
483 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
486 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
487 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
489 maint packet heythere
491 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
492 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
495 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
496 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
497 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
499 * Tracing can collect general expressions
501 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
502 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
503 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
505 * mask-address variable for Mips
507 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
508 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
509 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
511 * Higher serial baud rates
513 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
514 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
515 to achieve all of these rates.)
519 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
520 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
523 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
525 * New native configurations
527 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
528 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
529 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
530 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
531 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
532 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
533 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
537 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
538 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
539 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
540 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
541 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
542 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
543 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
544 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
545 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
546 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
547 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
549 * New debugging protocols
551 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
552 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
553 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
554 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
555 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
556 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
560 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
561 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
566 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
567 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
569 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
571 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
572 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
573 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
575 * Live range splitting
577 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
578 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
579 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
583 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
584 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
588 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
589 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
590 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
595 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
600 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
601 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
602 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
603 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
604 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
605 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
609 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
610 the symbol at the specified address.
614 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
615 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
616 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
617 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
618 file tracepoint.c for more details.
622 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
623 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
624 of most MIPS variants.
628 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
629 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
630 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
634 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
635 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
636 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
637 the possible architectures.
639 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
641 * New native configurations
643 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
644 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
645 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
646 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
647 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
648 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
652 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
653 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
654 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
655 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
656 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
658 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
662 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
663 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
664 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
665 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
666 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
670 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
672 * Windows 95/NT native
674 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
675 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
676 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
677 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
678 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
680 * dont-repeat command
682 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
683 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
684 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
685 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
687 * Send break instead of ^C
689 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
690 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
691 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
693 * Remote protocol timeout
695 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
696 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
697 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
699 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
701 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
702 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
703 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
704 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
705 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
707 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
708 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
709 automatically on hpux10.
711 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
713 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
715 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
717 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
718 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
719 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
720 every character. The default value is 1050.
722 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
724 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
725 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
726 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
727 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
728 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
729 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
731 * Speedups for remote debugging
733 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
734 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
735 and more efficient S-record downloading.
737 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
739 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
740 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
742 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
746 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
747 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
749 * Remote targets use caching
751 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
752 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
753 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
754 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
755 off' turns the the data cache off.
757 * Remote targets may have threads
759 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
760 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
761 gdb/remote.c for details.
765 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
766 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
767 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
768 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
769 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
770 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
771 sequence is something like
773 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
775 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
779 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
780 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
781 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
782 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
783 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
784 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
785 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
786 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
790 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
791 but does simplify configuration and building.
795 GDB now supports hpux10.
797 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
799 * New native configurations
801 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
802 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
803 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
804 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
808 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
809 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
810 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
811 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
814 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
816 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
817 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
818 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
819 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
820 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
822 * Arguments to user-defined commands
824 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
825 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
828 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
830 To execute the command use:
833 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
834 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
835 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
837 * New `if' and `while' commands
839 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
840 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
841 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
842 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
843 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
844 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
845 if the expression is zero.
847 * Fortran source language mode
849 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
850 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
851 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
852 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
855 * Better HPUX support
857 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
858 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
859 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
860 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
861 that behavior do the following before running the program:
867 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
868 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
874 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
875 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
878 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
879 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
881 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
883 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
884 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
885 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
886 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
887 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
888 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
890 * New DOS host serial code
892 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
893 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
896 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
898 * New "complete" command
900 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
901 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
903 * Trailing space optional in prompt
905 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
906 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
908 * Breakpoint hit counts
910 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
911 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
912 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
913 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
914 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
917 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
919 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
920 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
921 arrays actually contain only short strings.
923 * Shared library breakpoints
925 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
926 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
928 * Hardware watchpoints
930 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
931 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
933 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
937 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
938 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
940 * Improved Irix 5 support
942 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
944 * Improved HPPA support
946 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
948 * New native configurations
950 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
951 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
952 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
953 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
957 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
958 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
961 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
963 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
964 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
968 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
969 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
971 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
973 * Irix 5 is now supported
977 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
978 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
979 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
980 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
981 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
984 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
986 * User visible changes:
990 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
991 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
992 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
993 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
994 debugging info for the mips target).
996 * DEC Alpha native support
998 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
999 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1000 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1001 Alpha-specific notes.
1003 * Preliminary thread implementation
1005 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1007 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1009 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1010 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1013 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1015 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1016 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1017 call methods, ...etc.
1019 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1021 * User visible changes:
1023 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1024 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1025 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1026 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1028 Filename completion now works.
1030 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1031 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1032 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1034 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1035 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1036 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1037 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1038 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1042 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1043 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1046 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1050 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1051 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1052 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1056 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1057 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1058 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1059 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1060 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1064 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1065 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1066 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1068 * New targets supported
1070 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1071 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1072 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1073 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1074 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1076 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1077 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1078 GO32 memory extender.
1080 * New remote protocols
1082 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1084 * New source languages supported
1086 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1087 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1088 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1091 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1093 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1095 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1096 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1097 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1098 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1099 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1100 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1102 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1104 * Faster and better demangling
1106 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1107 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1108 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1109 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1110 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1111 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1114 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1115 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1116 compiler does not actually implement.
1118 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1120 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1121 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1122 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1123 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1124 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1125 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1128 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1129 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1131 * Improved configure script
1133 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1134 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1135 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1136 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1138 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1139 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1140 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1141 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1142 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1143 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1145 * Documentation improvements
1147 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1148 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1149 before submitting changes.
1151 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1152 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1153 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1154 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1155 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1157 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1158 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1159 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1160 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1161 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1162 around this problem.
1166 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1167 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1168 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1171 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1172 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1174 * New native hosts supported
1176 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1177 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1179 * New targets supported
1181 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1183 * New file formats supported
1185 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1186 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1190 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1192 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1193 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1195 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1196 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1197 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1199 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1200 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1202 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1203 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1204 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1207 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1208 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1209 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1210 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1211 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1213 * Internal improvements
1215 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1216 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1218 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1219 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1220 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1221 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1222 shared code that handles any of them.
1224 * New command line options
1226 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1230 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1231 General Public License.
1233 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1235 * Host/native/target split
1237 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1238 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1239 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1240 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1241 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1243 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1244 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1245 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1246 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1247 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1248 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1249 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1251 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1252 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1253 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1255 * New hosts supported
1257 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1258 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1259 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1261 * New targets supported
1263 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1264 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1266 * New native hosts supported
1268 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1269 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1270 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1272 * New file formats supported
1274 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1275 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1276 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1280 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1281 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1282 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1284 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1286 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1287 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1288 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1289 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1293 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1294 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1295 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1297 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1301 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1302 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1305 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1306 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1308 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1309 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1310 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1311 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1312 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1313 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1315 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1316 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1317 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1318 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1322 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1323 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1324 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1325 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1326 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1328 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1329 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1330 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1331 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1335 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1336 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1337 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1338 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1339 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1340 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1341 each instruction being stepped through.
1343 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1344 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1346 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1347 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1348 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1349 processor with a serial port.
1353 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1354 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1355 supported, and what files each one uses.
1359 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1360 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1361 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1362 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1364 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1365 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1366 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1367 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1371 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1372 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1373 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1374 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1375 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1376 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1378 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1381 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1383 * Better support for C++ function names
1385 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1386 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1387 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1388 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1389 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1391 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1392 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1393 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1394 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1395 for the list of formats.
1397 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1399 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1400 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1401 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1402 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1403 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1404 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1407 * New 'maintenance' command
1409 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1410 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1411 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1413 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1414 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1415 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1416 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1417 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1418 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1420 The following commands are new:
1422 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1423 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1424 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1426 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1428 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1429 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1430 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1431 read after argv processing.
1433 * New hosts supported
1435 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1437 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1439 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1440 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1441 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1442 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1443 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1446 * New targets supported
1448 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1450 * More smarts about finding #include files
1452 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1453 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1454 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1455 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1456 the one that contains your sources.
1458 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1459 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1460 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1462 * Interesting infernals change
1464 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1465 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1466 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1467 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1469 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1471 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1472 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1473 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1475 See the ChangeLog for details.
1477 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1479 * New machines supported (host and target)
1481 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1483 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1485 * New malloc package
1487 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1488 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1489 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1490 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1491 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1492 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1496 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1497 'help info proc' for details.
1499 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1501 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1502 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1505 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1507 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1508 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1509 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1510 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1511 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1512 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1514 * Cross byte order fixes
1516 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1517 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1519 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1521 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1522 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1523 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1524 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1525 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1526 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1527 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1528 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1529 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1530 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1532 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1533 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1534 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1535 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1537 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1538 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1539 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1542 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1544 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1545 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1546 shared across multiple host platforms.
1548 * longjmp() handling
1550 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1551 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1552 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1553 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1557 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1558 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1563 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1564 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1565 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1567 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1569 * New machines supported (host and target)
1571 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1573 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1574 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1576 * New machines supported (target)
1578 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1582 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1583 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1584 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1586 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1587 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1588 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1589 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1590 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1593 * New features for SVR4
1595 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1596 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1597 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1599 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1600 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1601 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1603 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1604 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1606 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1608 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1609 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1610 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1611 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1612 same code linked statically.
1616 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1617 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1618 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1619 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1620 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1621 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1625 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1626 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1627 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1630 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1632 * New machines supported (host and target)
1634 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1635 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1636 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1638 * Almost SCO Unix support
1640 We had hoped to support:
1641 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1642 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1643 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1644 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1646 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1648 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1649 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1650 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1651 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1656 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1657 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1658 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1662 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1663 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1664 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1666 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1668 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1669 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1670 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1672 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1673 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1674 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1675 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1678 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1679 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1680 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1681 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1684 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1685 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1688 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1689 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1690 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1693 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1695 * Improved configuration
1697 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1698 Porting BFD is simpler.
1702 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1703 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1704 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1705 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1709 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1711 * New host supported (not target)
1713 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1716 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1718 * Multiple source language support
1720 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1721 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1722 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1723 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1724 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1725 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1729 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1730 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1731 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1732 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1734 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1735 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1736 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1738 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1739 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1743 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1744 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1745 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1746 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1749 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1751 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1752 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1753 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1754 examining core files.
1758 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1761 * New machines supported (host and target)
1763 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1764 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1765 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1767 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1769 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1771 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1773 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1774 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1775 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1777 * New remote interfaces
1783 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1787 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1789 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1790 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1791 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1792 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1793 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1794 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1795 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1796 stub on the target system.
1798 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1800 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1801 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1802 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1804 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1805 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1808 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1810 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1811 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1813 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1814 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1815 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1817 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1818 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1819 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1820 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1822 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1823 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1824 it is already running. Default is ON.
1826 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1827 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1828 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1829 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1832 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1833 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1834 or the value of the environment variable
1837 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1838 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1841 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1842 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1843 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1845 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1846 history expansion will be performed on
1847 command line input. The default is OFF.
1849 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1850 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1851 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1853 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1854 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1855 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1858 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1859 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1860 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1863 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1864 ``set width'' instead.
1866 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1867 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1868 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1869 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1871 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1874 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1877 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1880 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1883 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1885 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1886 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1887 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1891 * Support for Shared Libraries
1893 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1894 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1895 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1896 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1897 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1898 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1899 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1900 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1902 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1903 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1904 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1906 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1911 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1912 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1913 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1914 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1915 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1916 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1918 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1920 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1922 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1923 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1924 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1927 * C++ multiple inheritance
1929 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1932 * C++ exception handling
1934 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1935 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1936 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1939 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1940 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1941 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1943 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1944 current stack frame.
1947 * Minor command changes
1949 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1950 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1951 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1953 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1954 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1955 frames without printing.
1957 * New directory command
1959 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1960 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1961 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1962 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1963 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1965 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1967 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1970 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1971 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1972 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1973 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob