1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.1
6 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
7 it understands register description.
9 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
11 * X86 general purpose registers
13 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
14 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
15 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
16 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
17 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
19 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
20 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
21 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
22 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
23 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
24 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
28 ** The GDB Python API now has access to symbols, symbol tables, and
31 ** New methods gdb.target_charset and gdb.target_wide_charset.
33 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
34 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
35 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
40 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
42 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
48 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
49 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
50 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
51 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
52 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
56 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
57 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
62 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
63 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
67 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
72 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
75 * Multi-program debugging.
77 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
78 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
79 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
80 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
81 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
82 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
83 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
84 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
86 * New tracing features
88 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
90 ** Trace state variables
92 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
93 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
94 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
95 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
96 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
97 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
98 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
99 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
100 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
101 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
105 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
106 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
107 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
108 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
109 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
110 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
111 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
112 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
113 the regular trace command.
115 ** Disconnected tracing
117 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
118 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
119 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
120 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
121 connection is lost unexpectedly.
125 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
126 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
127 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
128 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
129 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
130 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
133 ** Circular trace buffer
135 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
136 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
137 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
138 not be available for all target agents.
143 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
144 the arguments to be comma-separated.
147 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
148 which only declare a variable are not shown.
151 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
152 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
155 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
156 "set script-extension" (see below).
158 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
160 record save [<FILENAME>]
161 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
162 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
164 record restore <FILENAME>
165 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
166 earlier time, for replay debugging.
168 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
171 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
172 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
178 maint info program-spaces
179 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
181 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
182 show remote interrupt-sequence
183 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
184 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
185 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
186 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
187 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
189 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
190 show remote interrupt-on-connect
191 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
192 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
195 set remotebreak [on | off]
197 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
199 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
200 Create or modify a trace state variable.
203 List trace state variables and their values.
205 delete tvariable $NAME ...
206 Delete one or more trace state variables.
209 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
210 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
212 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
213 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
215 * New expression syntax
217 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
218 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
222 set follow-exec-mode new|same
223 show follow-exec-mode
224 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
225 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
226 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
228 set default-collect EXPR, ...
230 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
231 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
232 such as registers or a critical global variable.
234 set disconnected-tracing
235 show disconnected-tracing
236 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
237 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
240 set circular-trace-buffer
241 show circular-trace-buffer
242 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
243 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
244 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
245 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
247 set script-extension off|soft|strict
248 show script-extension
249 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
250 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
251 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
252 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
254 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
256 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
257 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
258 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
259 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
260 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
261 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
262 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
265 * Python API Improvements
267 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
268 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
269 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
271 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
272 `is_base_class' attribute.
274 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
276 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
277 evaluate an expression.
282 Define a trace state variable.
285 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
288 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
291 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
294 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
298 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
300 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
301 much more reliable. In particular:
302 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
303 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
304 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
305 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
306 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
307 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
308 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
309 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
310 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
311 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
312 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
313 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
314 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
315 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
316 non-threaded programs.
318 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
319 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
320 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
323 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
325 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
326 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
327 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
328 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
329 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
331 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
332 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
333 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
334 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
335 for tracepoint actions.
337 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
338 in hex as well as in symbolic form.
340 * Process record and replay
342 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
343 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
344 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
347 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
348 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
349 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
352 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
353 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
356 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
357 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
358 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
359 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
360 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
361 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
362 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
363 the installation instructions for more information.
365 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
366 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
367 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
368 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
370 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
371 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
373 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
374 now complete on file names.
376 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
377 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
378 For instance, consider:
380 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
381 # struct example variable;
384 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
385 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
387 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
388 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
390 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
391 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
394 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
395 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
396 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
398 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
399 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
400 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
401 and simulator targets may also provide them.
406 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
409 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
410 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
411 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
414 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
415 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
418 Obtains additional operating system information
422 Read or write additional signal information.
424 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
426 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
427 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
428 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
430 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
433 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
434 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
436 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
437 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
438 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
440 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
441 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
443 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
445 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
447 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
448 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
450 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
451 list of section offsets.
453 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
454 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
455 have also been fixed.
457 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
458 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
459 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
461 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
464 template<typename T> class C { };
467 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
469 ptype C<char const *>
471 ptype C<const char *>
474 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
476 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
477 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
479 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
480 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
481 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
483 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
484 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
486 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
489 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
490 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
492 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
493 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
498 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
499 available is determined at configure time.
501 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
503 * Ada tasking support
505 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
509 Print the list of Ada tasks.
511 Print detailed information about task number N.
513 Print the task number of the current task.
515 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
517 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
518 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
520 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
522 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
523 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
524 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
525 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
526 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
527 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
530 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
531 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
534 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
535 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
536 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
537 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
540 * Multi-architecture debugging.
542 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
543 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
544 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
545 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
546 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
548 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
549 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
550 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
551 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
552 --enable-targets configure option.
554 * Non-stop mode debugging.
556 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
557 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
558 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
559 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
560 section in the user manual for more information.
562 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
563 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
564 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
565 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
566 extensions on linux targets.
568 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
570 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
571 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
572 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
573 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
574 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
575 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
576 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
577 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
578 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
580 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
582 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
584 maint set python print-stack
585 maint show python print-stack
586 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
589 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
594 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
598 Show operating system information about processes.
601 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
604 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
607 Detach from inferior number NUM.
610 Kill inferior number NUM.
615 show spu stop-on-load
616 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
618 set spu auto-flush-cache
619 show spu auto-flush-cache
620 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
621 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
623 set sh calling-convention
624 show sh calling-convention
625 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
629 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
631 set disassemble-next-line
632 show disassemble-next-line
633 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
636 set remote noack-packet
637 show remote noack-packet
638 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
639 under "New remote packets."
641 set remote query-attached-packet
642 show remote query-attached-packet
643 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
645 set remote read-siginfo-object
646 show remote read-siginfo-object
647 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
650 set remote write-siginfo-object
651 show remote write-siginfo-object
652 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
655 set remote reverse-continue
656 show remote reverse-continue
657 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
659 set remote reverse-step
660 show remote reverse-step
661 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
663 set displaced-stepping
664 show displaced-stepping
665 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
666 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
667 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
671 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
673 maint set internal-error
674 maint show internal-error
675 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
677 maint set internal-warning
678 maint show internal-warning
679 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
684 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
686 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
687 show multiple-symbols
688 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
689 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
690 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
692 set breakpoint always-inserted
693 show breakpoint always-inserted
694 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
695 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
696 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
698 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
699 show arm fallback-mode
700 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
702 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
703 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
704 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
705 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
707 set disable-randomization
708 show disable-randomization
709 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
710 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
711 multiple debugging sessions.
715 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
720 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
721 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
722 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
723 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
725 set target-wide-charset
726 show target-wide-charset
727 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
728 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
730 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
732 set tcp connect-timeout
733 show tcp connect-timeout
734 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
735 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
736 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
738 set libthread-db-search-path
739 show libthread-db-search-path
740 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
743 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
744 show schedule-multiple
745 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
750 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
751 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
752 affecting correctness.
754 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
755 show interactive-mode
756 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
757 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
758 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
759 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
760 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
765 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
766 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
767 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
771 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
772 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
773 alias for the `fork' command.
776 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
777 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
778 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
781 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
782 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
783 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
787 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
788 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
789 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
792 * New native configurations
794 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
796 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
800 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
801 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
802 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
805 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
806 (mingw32ce) debugging.
812 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
814 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
816 * New native configurations
818 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
819 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
823 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
824 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
826 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
828 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
829 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
830 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
831 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
833 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
834 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
836 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
839 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
840 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
841 and in inlined functions.
843 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
844 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
845 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
847 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
849 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
850 registers on PowerPC targets.
852 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
853 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
855 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
856 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
858 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
859 extended-remote mode.
861 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
862 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
863 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
864 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
866 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
867 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
868 target architectures.
870 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
871 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
872 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
873 stored in two consecutive float registers.
875 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
878 * Improved support for debugging Ada
879 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
881 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
882 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
883 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
884 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
886 - Improved command completion in Ada
889 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
894 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
895 show print frame-arguments
896 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
897 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
902 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
909 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
918 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
921 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
925 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
927 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
929 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
930 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
931 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
933 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
934 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
935 -Bsymbolic linker option.
937 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
938 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
941 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
942 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
944 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
945 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
947 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
949 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
950 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
951 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
953 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
954 automatically displayed as character or string data.
956 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
957 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
960 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
961 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
962 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
964 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
967 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
968 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
969 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
971 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
973 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
975 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
976 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
977 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
979 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
980 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
982 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
983 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
984 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
985 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
986 Windows and SymbianOS).
988 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
989 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
991 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
992 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
998 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
999 when debugging using remote targets.
1001 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1002 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1003 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1004 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1005 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1006 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1007 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1009 set breakpoint auto-hw
1010 show breakpoint auto-hw
1011 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1012 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1013 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1014 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1015 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1016 including "next" and "finish".
1019 catch exception unhandled
1020 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1023 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1027 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1028 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1029 an alias to "set sysroot".
1032 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1033 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1036 * New native configurations
1038 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1041 unset tdesc filename
1043 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1044 not query the target for its built-in description.
1048 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1049 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1050 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1052 * New remote packets
1055 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1056 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1058 qXfer:features:read:
1059 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1064 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1065 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1067 qXfer:libraries:read:
1068 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1069 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1070 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1071 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1075 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1083 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1084 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1085 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1086 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1088 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1091 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1092 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1101 * Other removed features
1108 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1115 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1120 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1121 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1126 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1127 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1129 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1131 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1132 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1133 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1134 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1136 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1138 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1139 in debugging information.
1143 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1144 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1146 set mips stack-arg-size
1147 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1149 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1151 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1156 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1158 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1159 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1160 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1162 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1163 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1166 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1167 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1169 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1170 stub provides the required support.
1172 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1173 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1178 unset substitute-path
1179 show substitute-path
1180 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1181 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1182 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1183 between compilation and debugging.
1187 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1188 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1189 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1193 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1195 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1196 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1198 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1200 * New remote packets
1203 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1204 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1205 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1206 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1210 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1211 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1213 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1214 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1215 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1220 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1222 * Removed remote packets
1225 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1226 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1228 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1232 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1234 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1238 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1239 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1241 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1243 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1245 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1246 previously saved state.
1248 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1250 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1252 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1253 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1255 info forks List forks of the user program that
1256 are available to be debugged.
1258 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1259 forks of the user program that are
1260 available to be debugged.
1262 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1263 that are available to be debugged (and
1264 kill the forked process).
1266 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1267 that are available to be debugged (and
1268 allow the process to continue).
1272 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1274 * Improved Windows host support
1276 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1277 native console support, and remote communications using either
1278 network sockets or serial ports.
1280 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1282 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1283 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1284 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1285 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1286 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1287 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1291 The ARM rdi-share module.
1293 The Netware NLM debug server.
1295 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1297 * New native configurations
1299 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1300 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1304 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1306 * New command line options
1308 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1309 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1310 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1311 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1312 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1313 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1314 with the --command (-x) option.
1316 * Deprecated commands removed
1318 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1322 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1323 othernames set arm disassembler
1324 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1325 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1326 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1329 * New BSD user-level threads support
1331 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1332 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1335 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1336 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1337 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1339 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1340 are not yet supported.
1342 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1343 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1345 * REMOVED configurations and files
1347 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1348 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1349 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1351 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1353 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1354 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1357 * VAX floating point support
1359 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1361 * User-defined command support
1363 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1364 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1365 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1367 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1369 * New command line option
1371 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1374 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1376 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1377 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1378 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1379 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1380 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1382 * Internationalization
1384 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1385 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1386 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1390 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1391 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1392 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1394 * New native configurations
1396 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1400 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1401 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1403 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1405 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1406 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1407 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1410 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1411 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1412 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1422 powerpc bdm protocol
1424 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1425 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1427 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1429 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1430 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1431 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1432 permanently REMOVED.
1441 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1443 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1445 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1446 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1449 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1451 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1452 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1453 IRIX long double values).
1457 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1458 command. This problem has been fixed.
1460 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1462 * Fix for ``many threads''
1464 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1465 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1468 ptrace: No such process.
1469 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1471 This problem has been fixed.
1473 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1475 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1478 * New ``start'' command.
1480 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1482 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1484 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1485 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1486 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1488 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1489 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1490 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1491 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1492 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1493 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1494 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1495 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1496 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1498 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1500 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1501 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1502 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1503 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1504 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1506 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1507 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1508 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1510 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1512 * New native configurations
1514 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1515 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1516 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1517 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1518 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1519 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1520 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1522 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1524 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1525 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1526 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1527 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1528 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1529 work, was also included.
1531 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1532 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1542 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1543 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1545 * REMOVED configurations and files
1547 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1548 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1549 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1550 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1551 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1552 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1553 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1554 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1555 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1556 sonymips mips-sony-*
1557 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1559 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1561 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1563 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1564 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1565 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1566 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1569 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1571 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1572 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1573 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1574 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1575 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1576 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1579 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1581 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1583 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1584 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1585 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1587 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1589 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1590 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1592 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1594 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1595 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1596 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1598 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1600 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1601 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1603 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1605 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1606 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1607 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1609 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1611 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1612 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1613 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1615 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1617 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1619 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1620 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1622 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1624 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1625 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1626 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1627 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1629 * Revised SPARC target
1631 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1632 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1633 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1634 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1635 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1639 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1640 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1641 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1644 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1646 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1647 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1650 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1652 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1653 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1654 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1655 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1656 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1657 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1658 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1659 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1660 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1662 * New native configurations
1664 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1665 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1666 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1667 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1668 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1670 * New debugging protocols
1672 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1674 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1676 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1677 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1678 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1680 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1682 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1683 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1684 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1685 permanently REMOVED.
1687 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1688 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1689 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1690 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1691 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1692 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1693 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1694 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1695 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1696 sonymips mips-sony-*
1697 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1699 * REMOVED configurations and files
1701 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1702 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1703 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1704 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1705 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1706 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1707 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1708 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1709 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1710 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1711 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1712 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1713 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1714 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1715 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1716 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1717 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1719 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1723 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1724 integrated into GDB.
1726 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1728 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1729 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1730 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1733 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1734 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1735 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1739 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1740 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1741 remote protocol documentation for details.
1743 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1745 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1746 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1747 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1750 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1752 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1753 per-thread variables.
1755 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1757 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1758 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1760 * Separate debug info.
1762 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1763 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1764 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1765 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1766 and optional debug files.
1768 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1770 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1771 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1774 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1775 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1779 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1780 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1781 considered "useable".
1783 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1785 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1786 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1789 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1791 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1792 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1794 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1796 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1797 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1800 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1802 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1803 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1807 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1808 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1809 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1810 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1811 data, for more informative profiling results.
1813 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1815 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1816 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1817 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1819 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1822 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1823 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1824 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1825 in a subsequent -var-update.
1827 * New native configurations.
1829 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1831 * Multi-arched targets.
1833 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1834 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1836 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1838 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1839 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1840 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1841 permanently REMOVED.
1843 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1844 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1845 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1846 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1847 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1848 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1849 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1850 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1851 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1852 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1853 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1854 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1856 * REMOVED configurations and files
1859 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1860 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1861 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1862 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1863 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1864 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1866 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1867 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1868 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1869 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1870 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1871 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1873 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1875 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1876 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1877 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1878 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1879 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1881 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1883 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1885 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1886 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1887 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1888 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1889 shared libs like mad''.
1891 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1893 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1894 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1895 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1896 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1898 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1900 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1901 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1904 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1905 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1907 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1908 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1910 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1911 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1912 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1913 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1915 * Multi-arched targets.
1917 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1918 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1920 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1921 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1922 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1926 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1929 * New native configurations
1931 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1932 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1933 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1934 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1936 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1938 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1939 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1940 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1941 permanently REMOVED.
1943 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1944 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1945 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1946 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1947 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1948 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1949 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1950 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1951 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1952 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1954 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1955 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1957 * OBSOLETE languages
1959 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1961 * REMOVED configurations and files
1963 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1964 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1965 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1966 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1967 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1969 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1971 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1973 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1974 commands. The default is 1024.
1976 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1978 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1980 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1982 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1983 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1984 from a file into memory (restore).
1986 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1988 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1989 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1990 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1992 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2000 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2001 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2002 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2004 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2005 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2006 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2008 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2009 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2010 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2012 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2013 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2014 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2016 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2018 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2020 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2021 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2022 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2023 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2024 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2025 (notably embedded) targets.
2027 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2029 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2030 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2031 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2032 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2034 * New command line option
2036 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2038 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2040 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2041 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2042 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2043 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2044 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2045 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2046 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2047 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2048 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2049 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2051 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2053 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2054 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2056 * New native configurations
2058 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2059 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2060 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2061 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2065 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2067 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2069 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2070 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2071 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2072 permanently REMOVED.
2074 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2075 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2076 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2077 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2078 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2080 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2082 * REMOVED configurations and files
2084 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2086 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2087 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2088 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2089 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2090 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2091 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2092 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2093 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2094 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2095 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2096 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2098 * Changes to command line processing
2100 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2101 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2103 * Changes to key bindings
2105 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2107 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2109 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2111 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2114 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2116 Numerous documentation fixes.
2118 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2120 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2122 * New native configurations
2124 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2125 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2126 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2127 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2128 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2129 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2133 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2135 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2137 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2139 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2140 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2141 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2142 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2143 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2145 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2146 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2147 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2148 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2149 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2150 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2151 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2152 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2154 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2155 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2157 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2158 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2159 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2160 permanently REMOVED.
2162 * REMOVED configurations and files
2164 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2165 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2167 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2171 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2173 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2174 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2179 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2181 * The MI enabled by default.
2183 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2184 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2185 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2186 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2187 which is now deprecated.
2189 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2191 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2192 main features are supported:
2194 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2196 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2199 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2201 - a Pascal expression parser.
2203 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2205 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2207 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2209 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2210 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2212 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2214 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2216 * Changes in completion.
2218 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2219 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2220 users expect at the shell prompt.
2222 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2223 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2224 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2225 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2226 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2227 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2228 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2230 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2232 * New platform-independent commands:
2234 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2235 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2236 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2238 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2240 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2241 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2242 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2244 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2246 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2247 multi-threaded programs though.
2249 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2251 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2253 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2254 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2257 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2259 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2260 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2261 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2262 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2263 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2266 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2267 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2268 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2270 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2272 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2273 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2275 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2276 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2279 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2280 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2281 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2282 a given linear address.
2284 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2285 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2286 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2288 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2290 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2292 * Changes in documentation.
2294 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2295 Documentation License.
2297 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2300 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2302 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2305 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2306 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2307 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2309 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2311 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2312 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2313 contents of this file.
2317 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2319 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2321 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2323 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2324 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2325 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2326 greater level of detail.
2328 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2330 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2331 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2332 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2335 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2337 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2338 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2339 machines ``out of the box''.
2341 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2342 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2343 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2344 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2345 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2347 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2348 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2349 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2350 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2351 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2353 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2354 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2357 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2360 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2361 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2362 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2363 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2365 * New native configurations
2367 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2368 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2372 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2373 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2374 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2375 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2377 * OBSOLETE configurations
2379 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2380 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2382 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2385 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2386 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2387 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2388 be permanently REMOVED.
2390 * Gould support removed
2392 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2394 * New features for SVR4
2396 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2397 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2398 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2400 * Many C++ enhancements
2402 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2403 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2405 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2407 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2408 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2409 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2410 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2412 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2413 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2415 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2417 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2418 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2419 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2421 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2422 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2424 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2426 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2427 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2428 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2430 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2432 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2433 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2434 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2436 * ``apropos'' command added.
2438 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2439 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2440 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2444 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2445 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2446 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2447 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2448 enabled by configuring with:
2450 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2452 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2454 * New native configurations
2456 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2457 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2458 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2462 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2463 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2464 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2466 * OBSOLETE configurations
2468 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2470 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2471 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2472 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2473 be permanently REMOVED.
2477 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2478 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2479 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2480 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2481 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2482 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2483 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2488 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2490 * set extension-language
2492 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2493 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2494 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2495 set extension-language .c c++
2496 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2497 and their associated languages.
2499 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2501 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2502 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2503 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2507 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2508 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2510 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2511 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2513 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2514 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2515 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2516 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2517 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2518 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2519 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2520 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2522 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2523 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2524 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2525 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2529 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2530 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2531 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2532 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2533 for xdb and dbx commands.
2537 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2538 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2539 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2541 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2542 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2543 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2545 * Debugging across forks
2547 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2552 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2553 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2554 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2556 * GDB remote protocol additions
2558 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2559 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2560 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2561 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2563 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2564 full 64-bit address. The command
2566 set remoteaddresssize 32
2568 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2569 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2572 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2573 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2575 maint packet heythere
2577 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2578 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2581 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2582 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2583 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2585 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2587 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2588 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2589 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2591 * mask-address variable for Mips
2593 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2594 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2595 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2597 * Higher serial baud rates
2599 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2600 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2601 to achieve all of these rates.)
2605 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2606 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2609 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2611 * New native configurations
2613 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2614 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2615 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2616 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2617 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2618 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2619 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2623 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2624 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2625 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2626 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2627 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2628 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2629 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2630 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2631 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2632 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2633 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2635 * New debugging protocols
2637 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2638 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2639 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2640 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2641 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2642 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2646 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2647 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2652 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2653 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2655 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2657 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2658 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2659 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2661 * Live range splitting
2663 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2664 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2665 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2669 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2670 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2674 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2675 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2676 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2681 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2686 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2687 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2688 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2689 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2690 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2691 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2695 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2696 the symbol at the specified address.
2700 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2701 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2702 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2703 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2704 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2708 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2709 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2710 of most MIPS variants.
2714 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2715 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2716 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2720 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2721 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2722 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2723 the possible architectures.
2725 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2727 * New native configurations
2729 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2730 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2731 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2732 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2733 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2734 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2738 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2739 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2740 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2741 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2742 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2744 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2748 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2749 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2750 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2751 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2752 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2756 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2758 * Windows 95/NT native
2760 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2761 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2762 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2763 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2764 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2766 * dont-repeat command
2768 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2769 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2770 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2771 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2773 * Send break instead of ^C
2775 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2776 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2777 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2779 * Remote protocol timeout
2781 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2782 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2783 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2785 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2787 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2788 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2789 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2790 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2791 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2793 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2794 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2795 automatically on hpux10.
2797 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2799 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2801 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2803 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2804 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2805 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2806 every character. The default value is 1050.
2808 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2810 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2811 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2812 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2813 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2814 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2815 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2817 * Speedups for remote debugging
2819 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2820 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2821 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2823 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2825 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2826 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2828 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2830 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2832 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2833 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2835 * Remote targets use caching
2837 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2838 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2839 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2840 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2841 off' turns the the data cache off.
2843 * Remote targets may have threads
2845 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2846 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2847 gdb/remote.c for details.
2851 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2852 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2853 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2854 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2855 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2856 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2857 sequence is something like
2859 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2861 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2865 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2866 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2867 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2868 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2869 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2870 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2871 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2872 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2876 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2877 but does simplify configuration and building.
2881 GDB now supports hpux10.
2883 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2885 * New native configurations
2887 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2888 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2889 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2890 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2894 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2895 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2896 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2897 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2900 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2902 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2903 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2904 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2905 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2906 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2908 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2910 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2911 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2914 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2916 To execute the command use:
2919 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2920 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2921 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2923 * New `if' and `while' commands
2925 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2926 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2927 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2928 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2929 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2930 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2931 if the expression is zero.
2933 * Fortran source language mode
2935 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2936 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2937 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2938 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2941 * Better HPUX support
2943 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2944 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2945 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2946 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2947 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2953 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2954 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2960 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2961 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2964 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2965 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2967 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2969 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2970 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2971 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2972 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2973 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2974 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2976 * New DOS host serial code
2978 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2979 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2982 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2984 * New "complete" command
2986 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2987 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2989 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2991 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2992 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2994 * Breakpoint hit counts
2996 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2997 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2998 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2999 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3000 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3003 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3005 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3006 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3007 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3009 * Shared library breakpoints
3011 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3012 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3014 * Hardware watchpoints
3016 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3017 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3019 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3023 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3024 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3026 * Improved Irix 5 support
3028 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3030 * Improved HPPA support
3032 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3034 * New native configurations
3036 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3037 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3038 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3039 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3043 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3044 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3047 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3049 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3050 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3054 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3055 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3057 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3059 * Irix 5 is now supported
3063 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3064 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3065 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3066 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3067 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3070 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3072 * User visible changes:
3076 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3077 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3078 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3079 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3080 debugging info for the mips target).
3082 * DEC Alpha native support
3084 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3085 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3086 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3087 Alpha-specific notes.
3089 * Preliminary thread implementation
3091 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3093 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3095 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3096 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3099 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3101 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3102 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3103 call methods, ...etc.
3105 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3107 * User visible changes:
3109 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3110 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3111 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3112 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3114 Filename completion now works.
3116 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3117 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3118 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3120 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3121 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3122 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3123 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3124 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3128 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3129 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3132 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3136 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3137 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3138 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3142 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3143 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3144 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3145 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3146 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3150 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3151 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3152 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3154 * New targets supported
3156 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3157 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3158 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3159 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3160 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3162 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3163 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3164 GO32 memory extender.
3166 * New remote protocols
3168 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3170 * New source languages supported
3172 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3173 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3174 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3177 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3179 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3181 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3182 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3183 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3184 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3185 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3186 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3188 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3190 * Faster and better demangling
3192 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3193 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3194 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3195 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3196 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3197 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3200 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3201 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3202 compiler does not actually implement.
3204 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3206 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3207 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3208 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3209 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3210 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3211 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3214 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3215 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3217 * Improved configure script
3219 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3220 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3221 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3222 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3224 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3225 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3226 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3227 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3228 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3229 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3231 * Documentation improvements
3233 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3234 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3235 before submitting changes.
3237 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3238 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3239 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3240 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3241 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3243 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3244 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3245 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3246 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3247 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3248 around this problem.
3252 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3253 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3254 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3257 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3258 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3260 * New native hosts supported
3262 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3263 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3265 * New targets supported
3267 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3269 * New file formats supported
3271 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3272 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3276 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3278 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3279 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3281 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3282 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3283 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3285 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3286 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3288 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3289 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3290 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3293 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3294 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3295 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3296 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3297 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3299 * Internal improvements
3301 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3302 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3304 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3305 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3306 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3307 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3308 shared code that handles any of them.
3310 * New command line options
3312 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3316 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3317 General Public License.
3319 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3321 * Host/native/target split
3323 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3324 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3325 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3326 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3327 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3329 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3330 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3331 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3332 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3333 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3334 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3335 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3337 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3338 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3339 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3341 * New hosts supported
3343 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3344 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3345 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3347 * New targets supported
3349 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3350 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3352 * New native hosts supported
3354 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3355 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3356 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3358 * New file formats supported
3360 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3361 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3362 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3366 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3367 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3368 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3370 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3372 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3373 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3374 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3375 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3379 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3380 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3381 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3383 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3387 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3388 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3391 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3392 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3394 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3395 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3396 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3397 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3398 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3399 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3401 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3402 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3403 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3404 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3408 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3409 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3410 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3411 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3412 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3414 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3415 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3416 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3417 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3421 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3422 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3423 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3424 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3425 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3426 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3427 each instruction being stepped through.
3429 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3430 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3432 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3433 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3434 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3435 processor with a serial port.
3439 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3440 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3441 supported, and what files each one uses.
3445 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3446 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3447 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3448 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3450 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3451 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3452 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3453 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3457 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3458 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3459 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3460 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3461 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3462 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3464 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3467 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3469 * Better support for C++ function names
3471 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3472 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3473 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3474 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3475 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3477 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3478 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3479 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3480 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3481 for the list of formats.
3483 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3485 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3486 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3487 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3488 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3489 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3490 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3493 * New 'maintenance' command
3495 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3496 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3497 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3499 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3500 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3501 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3502 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3503 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3504 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3506 The following commands are new:
3508 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3509 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3510 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3512 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3514 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3515 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3516 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3517 read after argv processing.
3519 * New hosts supported
3521 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3523 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3525 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3526 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3527 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3528 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3529 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3532 * New targets supported
3534 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3536 * More smarts about finding #include files
3538 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3539 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3540 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3541 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3542 the one that contains your sources.
3544 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3545 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3546 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3548 * Interesting infernals change
3550 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3551 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3552 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3553 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3555 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3557 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3558 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3559 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3561 See the ChangeLog for details.
3563 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3565 * New machines supported (host and target)
3567 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3569 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3571 * New malloc package
3573 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3574 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3575 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3576 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3577 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3578 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3582 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3583 'help info proc' for details.
3585 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3587 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3588 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3591 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3593 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3594 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3595 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3596 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3597 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3598 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3600 * Cross byte order fixes
3602 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3603 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3605 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3607 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3608 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3609 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3610 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3611 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3612 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3613 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3614 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3615 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3616 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3618 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3619 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3620 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3621 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3623 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3624 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3625 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3628 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3630 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3631 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3632 shared across multiple host platforms.
3634 * longjmp() handling
3636 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3637 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3638 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3639 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3643 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3644 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3649 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3650 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3651 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3653 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3655 * New machines supported (host and target)
3657 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3659 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3660 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3662 * New machines supported (target)
3664 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3668 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3669 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3670 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3672 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3673 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3674 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3675 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3676 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3679 * New features for SVR4
3681 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3682 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3683 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3685 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3686 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3687 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3689 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3690 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3692 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3694 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3695 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3696 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3697 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3698 same code linked statically.
3702 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3703 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3704 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3705 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3706 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3707 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3711 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3712 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3713 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3716 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3718 * New machines supported (host and target)
3720 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3721 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3722 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3724 * Almost SCO Unix support
3726 We had hoped to support:
3727 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3728 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3729 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3730 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3732 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3734 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3735 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3736 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3737 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3742 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3743 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3744 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3748 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3749 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3750 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3752 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3754 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3755 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3756 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3758 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3759 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3760 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3761 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3764 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3765 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3766 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3767 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3770 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3771 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3774 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3775 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3776 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3779 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3781 * Improved configuration
3783 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3784 Porting BFD is simpler.
3788 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3789 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3790 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3791 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3795 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3797 * New host supported (not target)
3799 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3802 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3804 * Multiple source language support
3806 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3807 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3808 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3809 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3810 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3811 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3815 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3816 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3817 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3818 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3820 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3821 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3822 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3824 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3825 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3829 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3830 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3831 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3832 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3835 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3837 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3838 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3839 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3840 examining core files.
3844 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3847 * New machines supported (host and target)
3849 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3850 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3851 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3853 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3855 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3857 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3859 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3860 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3861 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3863 * New remote interfaces
3869 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3873 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3875 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3876 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3877 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3878 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3879 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3880 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3881 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3882 stub on the target system.
3884 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3886 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3887 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3888 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3890 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3891 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3894 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3896 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3897 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3899 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3900 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3901 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3903 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3904 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3905 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3906 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3908 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3909 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3910 it is already running. Default is ON.
3912 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3913 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3914 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3915 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3918 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3919 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3920 or the value of the environment variable
3923 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3924 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3927 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3928 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3929 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3931 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3932 history expansion will be performed on
3933 command line input. The default is OFF.
3935 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3936 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3937 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3939 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3940 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3941 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3944 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3945 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3946 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3949 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3950 ``set width'' instead.
3952 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3953 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3954 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3955 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3957 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3960 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3963 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3966 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3969 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3971 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3972 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3973 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3977 * Support for Shared Libraries
3979 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3980 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3981 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3982 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3983 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3984 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3985 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3986 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3988 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3989 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3990 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3992 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3997 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3998 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3999 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4000 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4001 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4002 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4004 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4006 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4008 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4009 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4010 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4013 * C++ multiple inheritance
4015 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4018 * C++ exception handling
4020 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4021 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4022 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4025 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4026 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4027 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4029 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4030 current stack frame.
4033 * Minor command changes
4035 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4036 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4037 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4039 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4040 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4041 frames without printing.
4043 * New directory command
4045 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4046 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4047 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4048 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4049 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4051 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4053 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4056 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4057 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4058 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4059 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob