1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
7 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
8 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
11 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
12 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
15 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
16 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
17 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
18 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
19 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
20 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
21 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
22 the installation instructions for more information.
24 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
25 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
26 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
27 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
29 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
30 now complete on file names.
32 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
33 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
34 For instance, consider:
36 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
37 # struct example variable;
40 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
41 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
43 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
44 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
47 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
48 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
49 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
54 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
57 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
58 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
59 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
62 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
63 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
66 Obtains additional operating system information
70 Read or write additional signal information.
72 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
74 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
75 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
76 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
78 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
81 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
82 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
84 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
85 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
86 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
88 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
89 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
91 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
93 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
95 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
96 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
98 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
99 list of section offsets.
101 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
102 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
103 have also been fixed.
105 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
106 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
107 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
109 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
112 template<typename T> class C { };
115 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
117 ptype C<char const *>
119 ptype C<const char *>
122 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
124 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
125 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
127 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
128 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
129 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
131 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
132 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
134 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
139 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
140 available is determined at configure time.
142 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
144 * Ada tasking support
146 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
150 Print the list of Ada tasks.
152 Print detailed information about task number N.
154 Print the task number of the current task.
156 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
158 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
159 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
161 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
163 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
165 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
167 maint set python print-stack
168 maint show python print-stack
169 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
172 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
177 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
181 Show operating system information about processes.
185 set sh calling-convention
186 show sh calling-convention
187 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
189 set print symbol-loading
190 show print symbol-loading
191 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
195 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
197 set disassemble-next-line
198 show disassemble-next-line
199 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
202 set remote noack-packet
203 show remote noack-packet
204 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
205 under "New remote packets."
207 set remote query-attached-packet
208 show remote query-attached-packet
209 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
211 set remote read-siginfo-object
212 show remote read-siginfo-object
213 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
216 set remote write-siginfo-object
217 show remote write-siginfo-object
218 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
221 set displaced-stepping
222 show displaced-stepping
223 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
224 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
225 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
229 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
231 maint set internal-error
232 maint show internal-error
233 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
235 maint set internal-warning
236 maint show internal-warning
237 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
242 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
244 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
245 show multiple-symbols
246 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
247 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
248 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
250 set breakpoint always-inserted
251 show breakpoint always-inserted
252 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
253 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
254 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
256 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
257 show arm fallback-mode
258 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
260 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
261 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
262 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
263 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
265 set disable-randomization
266 show disable-randomization
267 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
268 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
269 multiple debugging sessions.
273 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
278 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
279 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
280 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
281 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
283 set target-wide-charset
284 show target-wide-charset
285 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
286 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
288 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
290 set tcp connect-timeout
291 show tcp connect-timeout
292 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
293 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
294 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
296 * New native configurations
298 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
300 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
304 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
305 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
307 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
308 (mingw32ce) debugging.
314 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
316 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
318 * New native configurations
320 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
321 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
325 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
326 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
328 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
330 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
331 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
332 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
333 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
335 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
336 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
338 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
341 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
342 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
343 and in inlined functions.
345 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
346 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
347 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
349 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
351 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
352 registers on PowerPC targets.
354 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
355 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
357 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
358 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
360 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
361 extended-remote mode.
363 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
364 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
365 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
366 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
368 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
369 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
370 target architectures.
372 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
373 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
374 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
375 stored in two consecutive float registers.
377 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
380 * Improved support for debugging Ada
381 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
383 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
384 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
385 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
386 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
388 - Improved command completion in Ada
391 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
396 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
397 show print frame-arguments
398 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
399 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
404 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
411 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
420 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
423 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
427 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
429 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
431 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
432 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
433 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
435 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
436 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
437 -Bsymbolic linker option.
439 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
440 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
443 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
444 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
446 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
447 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
449 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
451 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
452 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
453 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
455 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
456 automatically displayed as character or string data.
458 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
459 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
462 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
463 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
464 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
466 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
469 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
470 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
471 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
473 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
475 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
477 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
478 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
479 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
481 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
482 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
484 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
485 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
486 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
487 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
488 Windows and SymbianOS).
490 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
491 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
493 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
494 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
500 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
501 when debugging using remote targets.
503 set mem inaccessible-by-default
504 show mem inaccessible-by-default
505 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
506 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
507 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
508 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
509 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
511 set breakpoint auto-hw
512 show breakpoint auto-hw
513 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
514 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
515 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
516 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
517 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
518 including "next" and "finish".
521 catch exception unhandled
522 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
525 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
529 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
530 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
531 an alias to "set sysroot".
534 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
535 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
538 * New native configurations
540 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
545 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
546 not query the target for its built-in description.
550 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
551 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
552 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
557 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
558 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
561 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
566 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
567 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
569 qXfer:libraries:read:
570 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
571 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
572 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
573 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
577 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
586 i[34567]86-*-netware*
587 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
588 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
590 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
593 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
594 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
603 * Other removed features
610 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
617 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
622 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
623 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
628 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
629 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
631 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
633 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
634 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
635 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
636 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
640 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
641 in debugging information.
645 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
646 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
648 set mips stack-arg-size
649 set mips saved-gpreg-size
651 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
653 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
658 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
660 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
661 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
662 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
664 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
665 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
668 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
669 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
671 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
672 stub provides the required support.
674 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
675 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
680 unset substitute-path
682 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
683 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
684 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
685 between compilation and debugging.
689 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
690 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
691 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
695 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
697 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
698 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
700 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
705 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
706 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
707 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
708 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
712 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
713 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
715 qXfer:memory-map:read:
716 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
717 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
722 Erase and program a flash memory device.
724 * Removed remote packets
727 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
728 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
730 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
734 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
736 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
740 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
741 only if it doesn't already have a value.
743 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
745 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
747 restart <n> Return the program state to a
748 previously saved state.
750 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
752 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
754 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
755 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
757 info forks List forks of the user program that
758 are available to be debugged.
760 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
761 forks of the user program that are
762 available to be debugged.
764 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
765 that are available to be debugged (and
766 kill the forked process).
768 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
769 that are available to be debugged (and
770 allow the process to continue).
774 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
776 * Improved Windows host support
778 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
779 native console support, and remote communications using either
780 network sockets or serial ports.
782 * Improved Modula-2 language support
784 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
785 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
786 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
787 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
788 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
789 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
793 The ARM rdi-share module.
795 The Netware NLM debug server.
797 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
799 * New native configurations
801 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
802 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
806 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
808 * New command line options
810 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
811 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
812 the child (debugged) program exited with.
813 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
814 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
815 specified multiple times and in conjunction
816 with the --command (-x) option.
818 * Deprecated commands removed
820 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
824 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
825 othernames set arm disassembler
826 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
827 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
828 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
831 * New BSD user-level threads support
833 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
834 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
837 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
838 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
839 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
841 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
842 are not yet supported.
844 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
845 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
847 * REMOVED configurations and files
849 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
850 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
851 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
853 * New "set print array-indexes" command
855 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
856 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
859 * VAX floating point support
861 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
863 * User-defined command support
865 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
866 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
867 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
869 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
871 * New command line option
873 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
876 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
878 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
879 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
880 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
881 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
882 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
884 * Internationalization
886 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
887 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
888 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
892 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
893 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
894 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
896 * New native configurations
898 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
902 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
903 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
905 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
907 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
908 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
909 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
912 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
913 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
914 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
926 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
927 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
929 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
931 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
932 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
933 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
943 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
945 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
947 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
948 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
951 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
953 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
954 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
955 IRIX long double values).
959 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
960 command. This problem has been fixed.
962 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
964 * Fix for ``many threads''
966 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
967 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
970 ptrace: No such process.
971 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
973 This problem has been fixed.
975 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
977 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
980 * New ``start'' command.
982 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
984 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
986 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
987 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
988 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
990 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
991 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
992 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
993 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
994 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
995 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
996 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
997 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
998 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1000 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1002 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1003 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1004 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1005 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1006 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1008 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1009 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1010 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1012 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1014 * New native configurations
1016 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1017 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1018 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1019 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1020 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1021 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1022 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1024 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1026 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1027 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1028 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1029 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1030 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1031 work, was also included.
1033 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1034 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1044 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1045 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1047 * REMOVED configurations and files
1049 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1050 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1051 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1052 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1053 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1054 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1055 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1056 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1057 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1058 sonymips mips-sony-*
1059 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1061 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1063 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1065 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1066 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1067 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1068 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1071 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1073 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1074 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1075 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1076 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1077 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1078 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1081 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1083 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1085 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1086 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1087 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1089 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1091 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1092 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1094 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1096 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1097 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1098 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1100 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1102 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1103 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1105 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1107 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1108 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1109 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1111 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1113 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1114 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1115 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1117 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1119 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1121 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1122 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1124 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1126 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1127 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1128 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1129 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1131 * Revised SPARC target
1133 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1134 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1135 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1136 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1137 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1141 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1142 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1143 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1146 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1148 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1149 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1152 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1154 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1155 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1156 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1157 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1158 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1159 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1160 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1161 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1162 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1164 * New native configurations
1166 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1167 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1168 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1169 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1170 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1172 * New debugging protocols
1174 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1176 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1178 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1179 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1180 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1182 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1184 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1185 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1186 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1187 permanently REMOVED.
1189 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1190 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1191 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1192 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1193 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1194 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1195 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1196 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1197 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1198 sonymips mips-sony-*
1199 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1201 * REMOVED configurations and files
1203 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1204 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1205 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1206 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1207 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1208 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1209 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1210 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1211 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1212 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1213 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1214 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1215 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1216 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1217 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1218 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1219 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1221 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1225 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1226 integrated into GDB.
1228 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1230 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1231 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1232 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1235 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1236 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1237 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1241 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1242 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1243 remote protocol documentation for details.
1245 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1247 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1248 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1249 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1252 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1254 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1255 per-thread variables.
1257 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1259 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1260 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1262 * Separate debug info.
1264 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1265 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1266 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1267 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1268 and optional debug files.
1270 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1272 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1273 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1276 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1277 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1281 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1282 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1283 considered "useable".
1285 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1287 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1288 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1291 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1293 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1294 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1296 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1298 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1299 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1302 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1304 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1305 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1309 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1310 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1311 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1312 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1313 data, for more informative profiling results.
1315 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1317 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1318 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1319 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1321 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1324 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1325 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1326 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1327 in a subsequent -var-update.
1329 * New native configurations.
1331 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1333 * Multi-arched targets.
1335 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1336 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1338 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1340 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1341 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1342 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1343 permanently REMOVED.
1345 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1346 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1347 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1348 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1349 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1350 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1351 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1352 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1353 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1354 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1355 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1356 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1358 * REMOVED configurations and files
1361 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1362 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1363 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1364 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1365 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1366 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1368 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1369 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1370 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1371 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1372 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1373 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1375 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1377 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1378 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1379 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1380 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1381 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1383 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1385 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1387 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1388 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1389 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1390 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1391 shared libs like mad''.
1393 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1395 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1396 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1397 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1398 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1400 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1402 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1403 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1406 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1407 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1409 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1410 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1412 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1413 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1414 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1415 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1417 * Multi-arched targets.
1419 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1420 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1422 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1423 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1424 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1428 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1431 * New native configurations
1433 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1434 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1435 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1436 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1438 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1440 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1441 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1442 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1443 permanently REMOVED.
1445 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1446 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1447 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1448 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1449 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1450 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1451 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1452 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1453 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1454 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1456 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1457 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1459 * OBSOLETE languages
1461 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1463 * REMOVED configurations and files
1465 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1466 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1467 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1468 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1469 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1471 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1473 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1475 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1476 commands. The default is 1024.
1478 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1480 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1482 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1484 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1485 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1486 from a file into memory (restore).
1488 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1490 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1491 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1492 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1494 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1502 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1503 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1504 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1506 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1507 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1508 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1510 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1511 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1512 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1514 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1515 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1516 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1518 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1520 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1522 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1523 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1524 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1525 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1526 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1527 (notably embedded) targets.
1529 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1531 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1532 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1533 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1534 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1536 * New command line option
1538 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1540 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1542 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1543 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1544 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1545 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1546 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1547 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1548 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1549 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1550 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1551 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1553 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1555 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1556 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1558 * New native configurations
1560 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1561 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1562 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1563 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1567 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1569 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1571 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1572 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1573 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1574 permanently REMOVED.
1576 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1577 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1578 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1579 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1580 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1582 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1584 * REMOVED configurations and files
1586 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1588 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1589 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1590 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1591 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1592 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1593 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1594 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1595 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1596 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1597 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1598 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1600 * Changes to command line processing
1602 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1603 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1605 * Changes to key bindings
1607 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1609 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1611 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1613 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1616 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1618 Numerous documentation fixes.
1620 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1622 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1624 * New native configurations
1626 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1627 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1628 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1629 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1630 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1631 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1635 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1637 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1639 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1641 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1642 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1643 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1644 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1645 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1647 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1648 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1649 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1650 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1651 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1652 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1653 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1654 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1656 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1657 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1659 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1660 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1661 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1662 permanently REMOVED.
1664 * REMOVED configurations and files
1666 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1667 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1669 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1673 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1675 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1676 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1681 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1683 * The MI enabled by default.
1685 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1686 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1687 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1688 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1689 which is now deprecated.
1691 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1693 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1694 main features are supported:
1696 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1698 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1701 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1703 - a Pascal expression parser.
1705 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1707 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1709 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1711 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1712 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1714 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1716 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1718 * Changes in completion.
1720 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1721 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1722 users expect at the shell prompt.
1724 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1725 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1726 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1727 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1728 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1729 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1730 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1732 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1734 * New platform-independent commands:
1736 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1737 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1738 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1740 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1742 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1743 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1744 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1746 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1748 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1749 multi-threaded programs though.
1751 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1753 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1755 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1756 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1759 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1761 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1762 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1763 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1764 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1765 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1768 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1769 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1770 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1772 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1774 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1775 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1777 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1778 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1781 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1782 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1783 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1784 a given linear address.
1786 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1787 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1788 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1790 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1792 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1794 * Changes in documentation.
1796 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1797 Documentation License.
1799 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1802 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1804 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1807 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1808 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1809 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1811 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1813 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1814 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1815 contents of this file.
1819 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1821 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1823 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1825 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1826 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1827 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1828 greater level of detail.
1830 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1832 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1833 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1834 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1837 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1839 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1840 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1841 machines ``out of the box''.
1843 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1844 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1845 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1846 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1847 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1849 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1850 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1851 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1852 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1853 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1855 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1856 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1859 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1862 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1863 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1864 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1865 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1867 * New native configurations
1869 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1870 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1874 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1875 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1876 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1877 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1879 * OBSOLETE configurations
1881 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1882 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1884 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1887 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1888 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1889 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1890 be permanently REMOVED.
1892 * Gould support removed
1894 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1896 * New features for SVR4
1898 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1899 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1900 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1902 * Many C++ enhancements
1904 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1905 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1907 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1909 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1910 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1911 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1912 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1914 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1915 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1917 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1919 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1920 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1921 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1923 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1924 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1926 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1928 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1929 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1930 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1932 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1934 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1935 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1936 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1938 * ``apropos'' command added.
1940 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1941 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1942 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1946 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1947 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1948 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1949 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1950 enabled by configuring with:
1952 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1954 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1956 * New native configurations
1958 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1959 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1960 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1964 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1965 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1966 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1968 * OBSOLETE configurations
1970 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1972 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1973 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1974 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1975 be permanently REMOVED.
1979 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1980 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1981 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1982 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1983 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1984 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1985 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1990 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1992 * set extension-language
1994 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1995 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1996 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1997 set extension-language .c c++
1998 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1999 and their associated languages.
2001 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2003 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2004 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2005 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2009 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2010 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2012 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2013 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2015 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2016 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2017 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2018 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2019 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2020 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2021 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2022 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2024 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2025 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2026 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2027 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2031 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2032 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2033 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2034 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2035 for xdb and dbx commands.
2039 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2040 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2041 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2043 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2044 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2045 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2047 * Debugging across forks
2049 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2054 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2055 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2056 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2058 * GDB remote protocol additions
2060 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2061 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2062 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2063 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2065 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2066 full 64-bit address. The command
2068 set remoteaddresssize 32
2070 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2071 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2074 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2075 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2077 maint packet heythere
2079 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2080 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2083 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2084 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2085 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2087 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2089 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2090 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2091 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2093 * mask-address variable for Mips
2095 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2096 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2097 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2099 * Higher serial baud rates
2101 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2102 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2103 to achieve all of these rates.)
2107 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2108 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2111 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2113 * New native configurations
2115 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2116 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2117 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2118 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2119 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2120 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2121 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2125 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2126 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2127 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2128 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2129 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2130 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2131 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2132 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2133 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2134 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2135 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2137 * New debugging protocols
2139 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2140 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2141 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2142 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2143 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2144 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2148 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2149 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2154 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2155 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2157 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2159 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2160 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2161 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2163 * Live range splitting
2165 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2166 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2167 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2171 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2172 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2176 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2177 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2178 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2183 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2188 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2189 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2190 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2191 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2192 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2193 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2197 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2198 the symbol at the specified address.
2202 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2203 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2204 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2205 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2206 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2210 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2211 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2212 of most MIPS variants.
2216 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2217 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2218 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2222 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2223 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2224 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2225 the possible architectures.
2227 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2229 * New native configurations
2231 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2232 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2233 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2234 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2235 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2236 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2240 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2241 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2242 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2243 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2244 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2246 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2250 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2251 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2252 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2253 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2254 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2258 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2260 * Windows 95/NT native
2262 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2263 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2264 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2265 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2266 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2268 * dont-repeat command
2270 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2271 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2272 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2273 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2275 * Send break instead of ^C
2277 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2278 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2279 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2281 * Remote protocol timeout
2283 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2284 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2285 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2287 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2289 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2290 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2291 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2292 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2293 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2295 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2296 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2297 automatically on hpux10.
2299 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2301 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2303 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2305 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2306 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2307 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2308 every character. The default value is 1050.
2310 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2312 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2313 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2314 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2315 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2316 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2317 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2319 * Speedups for remote debugging
2321 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2322 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2323 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2325 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2327 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2328 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2330 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2332 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2334 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2335 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2337 * Remote targets use caching
2339 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2340 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2341 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2342 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2343 off' turns the the data cache off.
2345 * Remote targets may have threads
2347 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2348 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2349 gdb/remote.c for details.
2353 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2354 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2355 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2356 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2357 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2358 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2359 sequence is something like
2361 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2363 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2367 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2368 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2369 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2370 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2371 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2372 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2373 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2374 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2378 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2379 but does simplify configuration and building.
2383 GDB now supports hpux10.
2385 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2387 * New native configurations
2389 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2390 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2391 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2392 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2396 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2397 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2398 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2399 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2402 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2404 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2405 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2406 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2407 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2408 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2410 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2412 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2413 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2416 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2418 To execute the command use:
2421 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2422 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2423 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2425 * New `if' and `while' commands
2427 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2428 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2429 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2430 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2431 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2432 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2433 if the expression is zero.
2435 * Fortran source language mode
2437 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2438 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2439 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2440 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2443 * Better HPUX support
2445 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2446 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2447 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2448 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2449 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2455 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2456 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2462 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2463 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2466 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2467 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2469 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2471 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2472 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2473 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2474 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2475 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2476 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2478 * New DOS host serial code
2480 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2481 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2484 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2486 * New "complete" command
2488 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2489 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2491 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2493 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2494 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2496 * Breakpoint hit counts
2498 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2499 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2500 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2501 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2502 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2505 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2507 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2508 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2509 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2511 * Shared library breakpoints
2513 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2514 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2516 * Hardware watchpoints
2518 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2519 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2521 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2525 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2526 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2528 * Improved Irix 5 support
2530 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2532 * Improved HPPA support
2534 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2536 * New native configurations
2538 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2539 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2540 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2541 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2545 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2546 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2549 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2551 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2552 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2556 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2557 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2559 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2561 * Irix 5 is now supported
2565 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2566 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2567 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2568 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2569 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2572 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2574 * User visible changes:
2578 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2579 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2580 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2581 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2582 debugging info for the mips target).
2584 * DEC Alpha native support
2586 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2587 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2588 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2589 Alpha-specific notes.
2591 * Preliminary thread implementation
2593 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2595 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2597 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2598 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2601 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2603 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2604 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2605 call methods, ...etc.
2607 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2609 * User visible changes:
2611 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2612 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2613 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2614 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2616 Filename completion now works.
2618 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2619 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2620 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2622 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2623 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2624 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2625 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2626 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2630 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2631 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2634 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2638 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2639 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2640 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2644 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2645 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2646 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2647 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2648 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2652 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2653 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2654 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2656 * New targets supported
2658 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2659 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2660 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2661 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2662 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2664 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2665 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2666 GO32 memory extender.
2668 * New remote protocols
2670 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2672 * New source languages supported
2674 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2675 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2676 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2679 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2681 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2683 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2684 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2685 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2686 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2687 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2688 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2690 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2692 * Faster and better demangling
2694 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2695 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2696 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2697 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2698 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2699 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2702 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2703 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2704 compiler does not actually implement.
2706 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2708 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2709 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2710 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2711 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2712 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2713 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2716 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2717 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2719 * Improved configure script
2721 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2722 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2723 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2724 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2726 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2727 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2728 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2729 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2730 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2731 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2733 * Documentation improvements
2735 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2736 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2737 before submitting changes.
2739 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2740 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2741 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2742 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2743 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2745 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2746 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2747 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2748 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2749 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2750 around this problem.
2754 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2755 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2756 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2759 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2760 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2762 * New native hosts supported
2764 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2765 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2767 * New targets supported
2769 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2771 * New file formats supported
2773 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2774 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2778 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2780 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2781 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2783 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2784 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2785 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2787 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2788 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2790 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2791 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2792 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2795 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2796 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2797 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2798 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2799 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2801 * Internal improvements
2803 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2804 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2806 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2807 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2808 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2809 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2810 shared code that handles any of them.
2812 * New command line options
2814 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2818 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2819 General Public License.
2821 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2823 * Host/native/target split
2825 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2826 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2827 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2828 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2829 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2831 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2832 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2833 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2834 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2835 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2836 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2837 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2839 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2840 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2841 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2843 * New hosts supported
2845 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2846 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2847 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2849 * New targets supported
2851 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2852 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2854 * New native hosts supported
2856 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2857 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2858 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2860 * New file formats supported
2862 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2863 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2864 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2868 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2869 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2870 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2872 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2874 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2875 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2876 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2877 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2881 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2882 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2883 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2885 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2889 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2890 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2893 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2894 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2896 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2897 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2898 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2899 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2900 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2901 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2903 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2904 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2905 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2906 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2910 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2911 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2912 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2913 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2914 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2916 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2917 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2918 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2919 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2923 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2924 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2925 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2926 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2927 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2928 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2929 each instruction being stepped through.
2931 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2932 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2934 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2935 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2936 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2937 processor with a serial port.
2941 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2942 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2943 supported, and what files each one uses.
2947 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2948 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2949 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2950 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2952 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2953 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2954 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2955 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2959 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2960 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2961 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2962 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2963 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2964 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2966 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2969 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2971 * Better support for C++ function names
2973 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2974 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2975 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2976 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2977 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2979 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2980 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2981 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2982 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2983 for the list of formats.
2985 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2987 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2988 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2989 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2990 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2991 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2992 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2995 * New 'maintenance' command
2997 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2998 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2999 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3001 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3002 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3003 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3004 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3005 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3006 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3008 The following commands are new:
3010 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3011 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3012 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3014 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3016 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3017 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3018 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3019 read after argv processing.
3021 * New hosts supported
3023 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3025 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3027 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3028 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3029 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3030 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3031 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3034 * New targets supported
3036 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3038 * More smarts about finding #include files
3040 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3041 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3042 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3043 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3044 the one that contains your sources.
3046 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3047 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3048 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3050 * Interesting infernals change
3052 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3053 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3054 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3055 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3057 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3059 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3060 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3061 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3063 See the ChangeLog for details.
3065 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3067 * New machines supported (host and target)
3069 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3071 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3073 * New malloc package
3075 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3076 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3077 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3078 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3079 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3080 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3084 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3085 'help info proc' for details.
3087 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3089 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3090 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3093 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3095 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3096 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3097 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3098 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3099 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3100 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3102 * Cross byte order fixes
3104 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3105 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3107 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3109 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3110 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3111 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3112 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3113 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3114 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3115 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3116 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3117 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3118 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3120 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3121 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3122 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3123 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3125 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3126 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3127 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3130 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3132 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3133 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3134 shared across multiple host platforms.
3136 * longjmp() handling
3138 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3139 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3140 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3141 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3145 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3146 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3151 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3152 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3153 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3155 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3157 * New machines supported (host and target)
3159 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3161 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3162 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3164 * New machines supported (target)
3166 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3170 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3171 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3172 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3174 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3175 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3176 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3177 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3178 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3181 * New features for SVR4
3183 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3184 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3185 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3187 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3188 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3189 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3191 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3192 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3194 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3196 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3197 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3198 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3199 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3200 same code linked statically.
3204 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3205 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3206 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3207 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3208 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3209 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3213 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3214 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3215 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3218 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3220 * New machines supported (host and target)
3222 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3223 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3224 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3226 * Almost SCO Unix support
3228 We had hoped to support:
3229 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3230 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3231 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3232 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3234 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3236 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3237 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3238 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3239 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3244 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3245 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3246 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3250 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3251 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3252 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3254 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3256 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3257 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3258 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3260 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3261 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3262 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3263 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3266 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3267 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3268 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3269 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3272 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3273 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3276 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3277 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3278 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3281 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3283 * Improved configuration
3285 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3286 Porting BFD is simpler.
3290 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3291 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3292 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3293 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3297 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3299 * New host supported (not target)
3301 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3304 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3306 * Multiple source language support
3308 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3309 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3310 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3311 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3312 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3313 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3317 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3318 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3319 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3320 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3322 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3323 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3324 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3326 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3327 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3331 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3332 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3333 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3334 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3337 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3339 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3340 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3341 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3342 examining core files.
3346 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3349 * New machines supported (host and target)
3351 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3352 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3353 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3355 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3357 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3359 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3361 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3362 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3363 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3365 * New remote interfaces
3371 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3375 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3377 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3378 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3379 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3380 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3381 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3382 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3383 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3384 stub on the target system.
3386 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3388 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3389 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3390 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3392 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3393 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3396 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3398 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3399 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3401 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3402 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3403 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3405 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3406 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3407 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3408 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3410 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3411 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3412 it is already running. Default is ON.
3414 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3415 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3416 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3417 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3420 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3421 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3422 or the value of the environment variable
3425 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3426 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3429 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3430 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3431 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3433 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3434 history expansion will be performed on
3435 command line input. The default is OFF.
3437 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3438 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3439 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3441 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3442 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3443 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3446 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3447 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3448 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3451 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3452 ``set width'' instead.
3454 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3455 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3456 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3457 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3459 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3462 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3465 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3468 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3471 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3473 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3474 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3475 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3479 * Support for Shared Libraries
3481 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3482 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3483 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3484 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3485 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3486 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3487 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3488 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3490 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3491 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3492 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3494 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3499 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3500 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3501 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3502 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3503 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3504 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3506 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3508 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3510 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3511 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3512 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3515 * C++ multiple inheritance
3517 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3520 * C++ exception handling
3522 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3523 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3524 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3527 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3528 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3529 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3531 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3532 current stack frame.
3535 * Minor command changes
3537 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3538 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3539 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3541 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3542 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3543 frames without printing.
3545 * New directory command
3547 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3548 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3549 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3550 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3551 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3553 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3555 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3558 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3559 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3560 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3561 where the program that you are debugging will run.