1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
7 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
8 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
9 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
10 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
11 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
12 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
13 the installation instructions for more information.
15 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
16 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
17 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
18 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
20 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
21 now complete on file names.
23 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
24 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
25 For instance, consider:
27 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
28 # struct example variable;
31 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
32 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
34 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
35 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
38 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
39 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
40 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
45 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
48 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
49 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
50 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
53 Obtains additional operating system information
57 Read or write additional signal information.
59 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
61 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
62 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
63 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
65 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
68 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
69 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
71 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
72 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
73 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
75 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
76 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
78 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
80 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
82 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
83 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
85 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
86 list of section offsets.
88 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
89 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
92 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
93 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
94 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
96 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
98 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
99 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
101 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
102 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
103 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
105 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
106 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
108 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
113 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
114 available is determined at configure time.
116 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
118 * Ada tasking support
120 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
124 Print the list of Ada tasks.
126 Print detailed information about task number N.
128 Print the task number of the current task.
130 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
132 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
133 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
137 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
139 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
141 maint set python print-stack
142 maint show python print-stack
143 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
146 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
148 set print symbol-loading
149 show print symbol-loading
150 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
154 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
159 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
161 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
162 show multiple-symbols
163 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
164 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
165 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
167 set breakpoint always-inserted
168 show breakpoint always-inserted
169 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
170 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
171 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
173 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
174 show arm fallback-mode
175 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
177 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
178 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
179 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
180 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
182 set disable-randomization
183 show disable-randomization
184 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
185 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
186 multiple debugging sessions.
189 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
190 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
191 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
192 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
194 set target-wide-charset
195 show target-wide-charset
196 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
197 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
199 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
201 set tcp connect-timeout
202 show tcp connect-timeout
203 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
204 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
205 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
210 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
214 Show operating system information about processes.
216 * New native configurations
218 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
220 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
224 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
225 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
231 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
233 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
235 * New native configurations
237 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
238 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
242 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
243 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
245 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
247 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
248 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
249 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
250 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
252 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
253 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
255 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
258 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
259 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
260 and in inlined functions.
262 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
263 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
264 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
266 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
268 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
269 registers on PowerPC targets.
271 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
272 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
274 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
275 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
277 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
278 extended-remote mode.
280 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
281 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
282 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
283 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
285 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
286 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
287 target architectures.
289 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
290 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
291 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
292 stored in two consecutive float registers.
294 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
297 * Improved support for debugging Ada
298 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
300 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
301 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
302 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
303 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
305 - Improved command completion in Ada
308 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
313 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
314 show print frame-arguments
315 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
316 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
321 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
328 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
337 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
340 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
344 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
346 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
348 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
349 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
350 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
352 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
353 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
354 -Bsymbolic linker option.
356 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
357 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
360 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
361 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
363 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
364 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
366 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
368 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
369 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
370 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
372 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
373 automatically displayed as character or string data.
375 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
376 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
379 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
380 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
381 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
383 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
386 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
387 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
388 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
390 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
392 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
394 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
395 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
396 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
398 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
399 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
401 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
402 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
403 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
404 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
405 Windows and SymbianOS).
407 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
408 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
410 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
411 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
417 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
418 when debugging using remote targets.
420 set mem inaccessible-by-default
421 show mem inaccessible-by-default
422 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
423 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
424 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
425 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
426 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
428 set breakpoint auto-hw
429 show breakpoint auto-hw
430 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
431 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
432 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
433 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
434 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
435 including "next" and "finish".
438 catch exception unhandled
439 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
442 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
446 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
447 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
448 an alias to "set sysroot".
451 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
452 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
455 * New native configurations
457 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
462 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
463 not query the target for its built-in description.
467 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
468 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
469 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
474 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
475 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
478 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
483 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
484 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
486 qXfer:libraries:read:
487 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
488 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
489 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
490 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
494 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
503 i[34567]86-*-netware*
504 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
505 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
507 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
510 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
511 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
520 * Other removed features
527 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
534 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
539 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
540 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
545 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
546 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
548 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
550 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
551 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
552 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
553 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
557 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
558 in debugging information.
562 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
563 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
565 set mips stack-arg-size
566 set mips saved-gpreg-size
568 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
570 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
575 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
577 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
578 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
579 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
581 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
582 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
585 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
586 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
588 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
589 stub provides the required support.
591 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
592 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
597 unset substitute-path
599 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
600 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
601 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
602 between compilation and debugging.
606 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
607 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
608 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
612 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
614 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
615 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
617 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
622 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
623 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
624 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
625 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
629 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
630 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
632 qXfer:memory-map:read:
633 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
634 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
639 Erase and program a flash memory device.
641 * Removed remote packets
644 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
645 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
647 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
651 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
653 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
657 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
658 only if it doesn't already have a value.
660 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
662 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
664 restart <n> Return the program state to a
665 previously saved state.
667 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
669 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
671 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
672 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
674 info forks List forks of the user program that
675 are available to be debugged.
677 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
678 forks of the user program that are
679 available to be debugged.
681 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
682 that are available to be debugged (and
683 kill the forked process).
685 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
686 that are available to be debugged (and
687 allow the process to continue).
691 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
693 * Improved Windows host support
695 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
696 native console support, and remote communications using either
697 network sockets or serial ports.
699 * Improved Modula-2 language support
701 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
702 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
703 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
704 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
705 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
706 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
710 The ARM rdi-share module.
712 The Netware NLM debug server.
714 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
716 * New native configurations
718 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
719 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
723 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
725 * New command line options
727 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
728 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
729 the child (debugged) program exited with.
730 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
731 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
732 specified multiple times and in conjunction
733 with the --command (-x) option.
735 * Deprecated commands removed
737 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
741 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
742 othernames set arm disassembler
743 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
744 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
745 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
748 * New BSD user-level threads support
750 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
751 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
754 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
755 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
756 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
758 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
759 are not yet supported.
761 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
762 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
764 * REMOVED configurations and files
766 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
767 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
768 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
770 * New "set print array-indexes" command
772 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
773 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
776 * VAX floating point support
778 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
780 * User-defined command support
782 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
783 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
784 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
786 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
788 * New command line option
790 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
793 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
795 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
796 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
797 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
798 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
799 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
801 * Internationalization
803 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
804 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
805 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
809 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
810 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
811 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
813 * New native configurations
815 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
819 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
820 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
822 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
824 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
825 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
826 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
829 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
830 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
831 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
843 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
844 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
846 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
848 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
849 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
850 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
860 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
862 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
864 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
865 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
868 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
870 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
871 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
872 IRIX long double values).
876 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
877 command. This problem has been fixed.
879 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
881 * Fix for ``many threads''
883 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
884 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
887 ptrace: No such process.
888 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
890 This problem has been fixed.
892 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
894 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
897 * New ``start'' command.
899 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
901 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
903 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
904 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
905 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
907 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
908 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
909 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
910 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
911 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
912 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
913 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
914 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
915 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
917 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
919 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
920 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
921 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
922 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
923 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
925 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
926 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
927 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
929 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
931 * New native configurations
933 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
934 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
935 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
936 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
937 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
938 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
939 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
941 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
943 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
944 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
945 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
946 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
947 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
948 work, was also included.
950 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
951 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
961 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
962 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
964 * REMOVED configurations and files
966 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
967 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
968 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
969 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
970 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
971 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
972 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
973 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
974 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
976 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
978 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
980 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
982 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
983 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
984 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
985 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
988 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
990 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
991 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
992 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
993 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
994 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
995 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
998 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1000 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1002 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1003 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1004 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1006 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1008 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1009 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1011 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1013 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1014 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1015 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1017 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1019 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1020 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1022 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1024 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1025 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1026 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1028 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1030 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1031 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1032 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1034 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1036 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1038 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1039 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1041 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1043 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1044 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1045 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1046 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1048 * Revised SPARC target
1050 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1051 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1052 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1053 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1054 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1058 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1059 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1060 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1063 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1065 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1066 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1069 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1071 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1072 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1073 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1074 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1075 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1076 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1077 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1078 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1079 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1081 * New native configurations
1083 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1084 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1085 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1086 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1087 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1089 * New debugging protocols
1091 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1093 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1095 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1096 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1097 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1099 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1101 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1102 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1103 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1104 permanently REMOVED.
1106 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1107 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1108 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1109 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1110 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1111 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1112 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1113 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1114 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1115 sonymips mips-sony-*
1116 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1118 * REMOVED configurations and files
1120 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1121 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1122 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1123 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1124 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1125 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1126 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1127 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1128 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1129 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1130 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1131 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1132 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1133 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1134 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1135 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1136 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1138 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1142 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1143 integrated into GDB.
1145 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1147 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1148 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1149 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1152 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1153 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1154 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1158 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1159 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1160 remote protocol documentation for details.
1162 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1164 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1165 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1166 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1169 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1171 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1172 per-thread variables.
1174 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1176 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1177 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1179 * Separate debug info.
1181 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1182 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1183 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1184 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1185 and optional debug files.
1187 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1189 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1190 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1193 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1194 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1198 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1199 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1200 considered "useable".
1202 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1204 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1205 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1208 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1210 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1211 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1213 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1215 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1216 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1219 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1221 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1222 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1226 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1227 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1228 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1229 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1230 data, for more informative profiling results.
1232 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1234 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1235 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1236 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1238 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1241 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1242 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1243 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1244 in a subsequent -var-update.
1246 * New native configurations.
1248 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1250 * Multi-arched targets.
1252 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1253 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1255 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1257 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1258 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1259 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1260 permanently REMOVED.
1262 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1263 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1264 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1265 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1266 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1267 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1268 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1269 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1270 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1271 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1272 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1273 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1275 * REMOVED configurations and files
1278 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1279 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1280 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1281 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1282 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1283 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1285 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1286 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1287 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1288 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1289 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1290 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1292 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1294 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1295 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1296 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1297 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1298 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1300 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1302 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1304 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1305 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1306 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1307 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1308 shared libs like mad''.
1310 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1312 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1313 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1314 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1315 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1317 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1319 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1320 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1323 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1324 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1326 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1327 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1329 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1330 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1331 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1332 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1334 * Multi-arched targets.
1336 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1337 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1339 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1340 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1341 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1345 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1348 * New native configurations
1350 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1351 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1352 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1353 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1355 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1357 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1358 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1359 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1360 permanently REMOVED.
1362 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1363 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1364 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1365 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1366 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1367 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1368 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1369 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1370 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1371 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1373 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1374 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1376 * OBSOLETE languages
1378 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1380 * REMOVED configurations and files
1382 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1383 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1384 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1385 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1386 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1388 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1390 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1392 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1393 commands. The default is 1024.
1395 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1397 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1399 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1401 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1402 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1403 from a file into memory (restore).
1405 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1407 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1408 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1409 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1411 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1419 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1420 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1421 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1423 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1424 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1425 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1427 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1428 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1429 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1431 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1432 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1433 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1435 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1437 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1439 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1440 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1441 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1442 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1443 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1444 (notably embedded) targets.
1446 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1448 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1449 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1450 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1451 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1453 * New command line option
1455 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1457 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1459 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1460 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1461 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1462 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1463 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1464 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1465 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1466 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1467 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1468 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1470 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1472 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1473 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1475 * New native configurations
1477 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1478 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1479 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1480 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1484 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1486 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1488 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1489 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1490 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1491 permanently REMOVED.
1493 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1494 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1495 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1496 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1497 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1499 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1501 * REMOVED configurations and files
1503 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1505 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1506 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1507 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1508 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1509 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1510 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1511 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1512 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1513 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1514 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1515 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1517 * Changes to command line processing
1519 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1520 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1522 * Changes to key bindings
1524 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1526 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1528 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1530 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1533 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1535 Numerous documentation fixes.
1537 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1539 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1541 * New native configurations
1543 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1544 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1545 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1546 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1547 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1548 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1552 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1554 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1556 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1558 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1559 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1560 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1561 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1562 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1564 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1565 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1566 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1567 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1568 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1569 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1570 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1571 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1573 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1574 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1576 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1577 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1578 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1579 permanently REMOVED.
1581 * REMOVED configurations and files
1583 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1584 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1586 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1590 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1592 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1593 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1598 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1600 * The MI enabled by default.
1602 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1603 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1604 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1605 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1606 which is now deprecated.
1608 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1610 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1611 main features are supported:
1613 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1615 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1618 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1620 - a Pascal expression parser.
1622 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1624 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1626 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1628 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1629 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1631 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1633 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1635 * Changes in completion.
1637 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1638 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1639 users expect at the shell prompt.
1641 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1642 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1643 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1644 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1645 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1646 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1647 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1649 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1651 * New platform-independent commands:
1653 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1654 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1655 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1657 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1659 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1660 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1661 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1663 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1665 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1666 multi-threaded programs though.
1668 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1670 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1672 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1673 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1676 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1678 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1679 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1680 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1681 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1682 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1685 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1686 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1687 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1689 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1691 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1692 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1694 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1695 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1698 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1699 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1700 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1701 a given linear address.
1703 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1704 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1705 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1707 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1709 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1711 * Changes in documentation.
1713 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1714 Documentation License.
1716 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1719 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1721 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1724 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1725 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1726 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1728 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1730 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1731 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1732 contents of this file.
1736 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1738 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1740 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1742 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1743 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1744 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1745 greater level of detail.
1747 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1749 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1750 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1751 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1754 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1756 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1757 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1758 machines ``out of the box''.
1760 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1761 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1762 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1763 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1764 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1766 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1767 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1768 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1769 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1770 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1772 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1773 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1776 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1779 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1780 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1781 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1782 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1784 * New native configurations
1786 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1787 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1791 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1792 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1793 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1794 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1796 * OBSOLETE configurations
1798 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1799 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1801 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1804 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1805 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1806 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1807 be permanently REMOVED.
1809 * Gould support removed
1811 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1813 * New features for SVR4
1815 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1816 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1817 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1819 * Many C++ enhancements
1821 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1822 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1824 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1826 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1827 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1828 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1829 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1831 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1832 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1834 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1836 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1837 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1838 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1840 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1841 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1843 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1845 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1846 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1847 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1849 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1851 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1852 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1853 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1855 * ``apropos'' command added.
1857 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1858 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1859 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1863 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1864 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1865 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1866 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1867 enabled by configuring with:
1869 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1871 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1873 * New native configurations
1875 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1876 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1877 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1881 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1882 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1883 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1885 * OBSOLETE configurations
1887 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1889 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1890 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1891 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1892 be permanently REMOVED.
1896 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1897 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1898 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1899 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1900 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1901 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1902 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1907 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1909 * set extension-language
1911 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1912 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1913 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1914 set extension-language .c c++
1915 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1916 and their associated languages.
1918 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1920 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1921 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1922 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1926 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1927 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1929 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1930 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1932 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1933 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1934 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1935 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1936 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1937 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1938 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1939 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1941 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1942 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1943 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1944 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1948 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1949 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1950 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1951 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1952 for xdb and dbx commands.
1956 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1957 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1958 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1960 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1961 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1962 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1964 * Debugging across forks
1966 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1971 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1972 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1973 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1975 * GDB remote protocol additions
1977 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1978 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1979 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1980 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1982 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1983 full 64-bit address. The command
1985 set remoteaddresssize 32
1987 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1988 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1991 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1992 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1994 maint packet heythere
1996 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1997 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2000 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2001 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2002 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2004 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2006 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2007 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2008 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2010 * mask-address variable for Mips
2012 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2013 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2014 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2016 * Higher serial baud rates
2018 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2019 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2020 to achieve all of these rates.)
2024 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2025 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2028 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2030 * New native configurations
2032 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2033 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2034 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2035 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2036 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2037 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2038 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2042 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2043 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2044 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2045 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2046 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2047 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2048 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2049 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2050 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2051 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2052 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2054 * New debugging protocols
2056 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2057 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2058 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2059 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2060 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2061 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2065 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2066 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2071 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2072 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2074 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2076 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2077 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2078 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2080 * Live range splitting
2082 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2083 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2084 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2088 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2089 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2093 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2094 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2095 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2100 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2105 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2106 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2107 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2108 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2109 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2110 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2114 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2115 the symbol at the specified address.
2119 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2120 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2121 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2122 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2123 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2127 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2128 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2129 of most MIPS variants.
2133 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2134 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2135 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2139 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2140 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2141 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2142 the possible architectures.
2144 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2146 * New native configurations
2148 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2149 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2150 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2151 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2152 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2153 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2157 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2158 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2159 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2160 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2161 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2163 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2167 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2168 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2169 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2170 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2171 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2175 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2177 * Windows 95/NT native
2179 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2180 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2181 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2182 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2183 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2185 * dont-repeat command
2187 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2188 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2189 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2190 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2192 * Send break instead of ^C
2194 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2195 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2196 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2198 * Remote protocol timeout
2200 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2201 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2202 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2204 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2206 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2207 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2208 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2209 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2210 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2212 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2213 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2214 automatically on hpux10.
2216 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2218 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2220 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2222 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2223 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2224 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2225 every character. The default value is 1050.
2227 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2229 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2230 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2231 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2232 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2233 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2234 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2236 * Speedups for remote debugging
2238 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2239 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2240 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2242 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2244 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2245 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2247 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2249 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2251 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2252 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2254 * Remote targets use caching
2256 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2257 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2258 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2259 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2260 off' turns the the data cache off.
2262 * Remote targets may have threads
2264 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2265 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2266 gdb/remote.c for details.
2270 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2271 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2272 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2273 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2274 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2275 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2276 sequence is something like
2278 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2280 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2284 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2285 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2286 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2287 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2288 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2289 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2290 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2291 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2295 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2296 but does simplify configuration and building.
2300 GDB now supports hpux10.
2302 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2304 * New native configurations
2306 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2307 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2308 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2309 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2313 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2314 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2315 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2316 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2319 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2321 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2322 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2323 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2324 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2325 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2327 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2329 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2330 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2333 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2335 To execute the command use:
2338 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2339 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2340 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2342 * New `if' and `while' commands
2344 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2345 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2346 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2347 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2348 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2349 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2350 if the expression is zero.
2352 * Fortran source language mode
2354 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2355 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2356 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2357 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2360 * Better HPUX support
2362 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2363 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2364 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2365 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2366 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2372 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2373 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2379 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2380 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2383 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2384 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2386 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2388 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2389 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2390 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2391 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2392 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2393 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2395 * New DOS host serial code
2397 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2398 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2401 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2403 * New "complete" command
2405 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2406 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2408 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2410 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2411 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2413 * Breakpoint hit counts
2415 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2416 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2417 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2418 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2419 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2422 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2424 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2425 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2426 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2428 * Shared library breakpoints
2430 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2431 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2433 * Hardware watchpoints
2435 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2436 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2438 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2442 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2443 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2445 * Improved Irix 5 support
2447 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2449 * Improved HPPA support
2451 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2453 * New native configurations
2455 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2456 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2457 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2458 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2462 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2463 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2466 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2468 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2469 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2473 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2474 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2476 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2478 * Irix 5 is now supported
2482 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2483 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2484 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2485 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2486 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2489 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2491 * User visible changes:
2495 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2496 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2497 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2498 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2499 debugging info for the mips target).
2501 * DEC Alpha native support
2503 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2504 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2505 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2506 Alpha-specific notes.
2508 * Preliminary thread implementation
2510 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2512 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2514 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2515 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2518 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2520 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2521 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2522 call methods, ...etc.
2524 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2526 * User visible changes:
2528 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2529 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2530 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2531 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2533 Filename completion now works.
2535 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2536 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2537 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2539 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2540 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2541 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2542 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2543 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2547 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2548 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2551 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2555 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2556 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2557 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2561 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2562 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2563 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2564 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2565 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2569 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2570 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2571 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2573 * New targets supported
2575 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2576 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2577 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2578 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2579 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2581 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2582 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2583 GO32 memory extender.
2585 * New remote protocols
2587 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2589 * New source languages supported
2591 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2592 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2593 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2596 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2598 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2600 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2601 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2602 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2603 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2604 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2605 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2607 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2609 * Faster and better demangling
2611 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2612 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2613 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2614 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2615 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2616 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2619 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2620 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2621 compiler does not actually implement.
2623 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2625 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2626 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2627 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2628 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2629 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2630 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2633 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2634 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2636 * Improved configure script
2638 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2639 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2640 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2641 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2643 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2644 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2645 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2646 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2647 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2648 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2650 * Documentation improvements
2652 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2653 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2654 before submitting changes.
2656 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2657 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2658 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2659 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2660 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2662 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2663 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2664 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2665 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2666 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2667 around this problem.
2671 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2672 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2673 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2676 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2677 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2679 * New native hosts supported
2681 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2682 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2684 * New targets supported
2686 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2688 * New file formats supported
2690 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2691 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2695 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2697 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2698 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2700 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2701 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2702 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2704 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2705 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2707 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2708 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2709 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2712 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2713 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2714 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2715 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2716 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2718 * Internal improvements
2720 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2721 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2723 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2724 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2725 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2726 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2727 shared code that handles any of them.
2729 * New command line options
2731 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2735 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2736 General Public License.
2738 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2740 * Host/native/target split
2742 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2743 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2744 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2745 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2746 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2748 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2749 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2750 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2751 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2752 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2753 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2754 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2756 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2757 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2758 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2760 * New hosts supported
2762 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2763 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2764 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2766 * New targets supported
2768 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2769 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2771 * New native hosts supported
2773 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2774 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2775 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2777 * New file formats supported
2779 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2780 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2781 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2785 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2786 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2787 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2789 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2791 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2792 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2793 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2794 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2798 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2799 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2800 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2802 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2806 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2807 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2810 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2811 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2813 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2814 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2815 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2816 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2817 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2818 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2820 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2821 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2822 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2823 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2827 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2828 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2829 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2830 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2831 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2833 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2834 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2835 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2836 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2840 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2841 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2842 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2843 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2844 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2845 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2846 each instruction being stepped through.
2848 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2849 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2851 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2852 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2853 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2854 processor with a serial port.
2858 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2859 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2860 supported, and what files each one uses.
2864 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2865 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2866 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2867 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2869 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2870 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2871 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2872 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2876 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2877 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2878 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2879 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2880 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2881 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2883 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2886 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2888 * Better support for C++ function names
2890 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2891 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2892 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2893 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2894 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2896 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2897 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2898 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2899 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2900 for the list of formats.
2902 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2904 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2905 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2906 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2907 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2908 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2909 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2912 * New 'maintenance' command
2914 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2915 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2916 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2918 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2919 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2920 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2921 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2922 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2923 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2925 The following commands are new:
2927 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2928 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2929 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2931 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2933 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2934 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2935 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2936 read after argv processing.
2938 * New hosts supported
2940 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2942 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2944 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2945 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2946 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2947 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2948 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2951 * New targets supported
2953 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2955 * More smarts about finding #include files
2957 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2958 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2959 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2960 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2961 the one that contains your sources.
2963 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2964 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2965 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2967 * Interesting infernals change
2969 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2970 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2971 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2972 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2974 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2976 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2977 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2978 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2980 See the ChangeLog for details.
2982 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2984 * New machines supported (host and target)
2986 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2988 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2990 * New malloc package
2992 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2993 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2994 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2995 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2996 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2997 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3001 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3002 'help info proc' for details.
3004 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3006 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3007 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3010 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3012 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3013 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3014 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3015 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3016 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3017 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3019 * Cross byte order fixes
3021 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3022 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3024 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3026 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3027 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3028 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3029 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3030 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3031 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3032 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3033 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3034 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3035 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3037 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3038 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3039 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3040 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3042 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3043 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3044 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3047 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3049 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3050 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3051 shared across multiple host platforms.
3053 * longjmp() handling
3055 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3056 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3057 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3058 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3062 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3063 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3068 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3069 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3070 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3072 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3074 * New machines supported (host and target)
3076 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3078 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3079 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3081 * New machines supported (target)
3083 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3087 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3088 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3089 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3091 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3092 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3093 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3094 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3095 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3098 * New features for SVR4
3100 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3101 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3102 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3104 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3105 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3106 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3108 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3109 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3111 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3113 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3114 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3115 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3116 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3117 same code linked statically.
3121 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3122 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3123 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3124 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3125 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3126 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3130 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3131 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3132 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3135 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3137 * New machines supported (host and target)
3139 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3140 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3141 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3143 * Almost SCO Unix support
3145 We had hoped to support:
3146 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3147 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3148 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3149 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3151 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3153 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3154 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3155 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3156 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3161 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3162 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3163 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3167 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3168 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3169 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3171 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3173 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3174 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3175 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3177 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3178 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3179 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3180 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3183 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3184 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3185 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3186 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3189 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3190 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3193 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3194 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3195 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3198 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3200 * Improved configuration
3202 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3203 Porting BFD is simpler.
3207 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3208 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3209 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3210 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3214 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3216 * New host supported (not target)
3218 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3221 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3223 * Multiple source language support
3225 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3226 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3227 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3228 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3229 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3230 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3234 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3235 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3236 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3237 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3239 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3240 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3241 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3243 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3244 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3248 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3249 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3250 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3251 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3254 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3256 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3257 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3258 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3259 examining core files.
3263 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3266 * New machines supported (host and target)
3268 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3269 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3270 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3272 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3274 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3276 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3278 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3279 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3280 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3282 * New remote interfaces
3288 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3292 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3294 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3295 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3296 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3297 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3298 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3299 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3300 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3301 stub on the target system.
3303 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3305 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3306 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3307 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3309 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3310 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3313 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3315 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3316 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3318 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3319 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3320 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3322 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3323 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3324 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3325 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3327 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3328 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3329 it is already running. Default is ON.
3331 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3332 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3333 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3334 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3337 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3338 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3339 or the value of the environment variable
3342 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3343 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3346 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3347 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3348 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3350 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3351 history expansion will be performed on
3352 command line input. The default is OFF.
3354 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3355 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3356 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3358 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3359 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3360 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3363 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3364 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3365 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3368 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3369 ``set width'' instead.
3371 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3372 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3373 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3374 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3376 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3379 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3382 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3385 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3388 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3390 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3391 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3392 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3396 * Support for Shared Libraries
3398 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3399 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3400 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3401 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3402 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3403 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3404 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3405 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3407 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3408 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3409 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3411 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3416 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3417 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3418 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3419 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3420 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3421 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3423 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3425 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3427 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3428 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3429 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3432 * C++ multiple inheritance
3434 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3437 * C++ exception handling
3439 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3440 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3441 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3444 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3445 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3446 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3448 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3449 current stack frame.
3452 * Minor command changes
3454 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3455 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3456 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3458 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3459 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3460 frames without printing.
3462 * New directory command
3464 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3465 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3466 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3467 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3468 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3470 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3472 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3475 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3476 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3477 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3478 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob