1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
6 * d10v `regs' command deprecated
8 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
9 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
13 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
14 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
15 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
16 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
17 data, for more informative profiling results.
19 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
21 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
22 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
23 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
25 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
28 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
29 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
30 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
31 in a subsequent -var-update.
33 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
35 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
40 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
41 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
42 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
43 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
45 * REMOVED configurations and files
48 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
49 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
50 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
51 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
52 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
53 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
55 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
56 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
57 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
58 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
59 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
60 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
62 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
64 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
65 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
66 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
67 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
68 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
70 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
72 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
74 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
75 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
76 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
77 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
78 shared libs like mad''.
80 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
82 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
83 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
84 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
85 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
87 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
89 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
90 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
93 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
94 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
96 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
97 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
99 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
100 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
101 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
102 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
104 * Multi-arched targets.
106 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
107 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
109 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
110 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
111 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
115 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
118 * New native configurations
120 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
121 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
122 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
123 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
125 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
127 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
128 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
129 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
132 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
133 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
134 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
135 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
136 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
137 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
138 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
139 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
140 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
141 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
143 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
144 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
148 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
150 * REMOVED configurations and files
152 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
153 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
154 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
155 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
156 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
158 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
160 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
162 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
163 commands. The default is 1024.
165 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
167 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
169 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
171 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
172 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
173 from a file into memory (restore).
175 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
177 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
178 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
179 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
181 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
189 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
190 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
191 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
193 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
194 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
195 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
197 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
198 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
199 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
201 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
202 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
203 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
205 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
207 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
209 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
210 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
211 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
212 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
213 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
214 (notably embedded) targets.
216 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
218 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
219 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
220 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
221 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
223 * New command line option
225 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
227 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
229 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
230 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
231 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
232 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
233 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
234 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
235 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
236 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
237 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
238 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
240 * Changes in ARM configurations.
242 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
243 configuration is fully multi-arch.
245 * New native configurations
247 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
248 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
249 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
250 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
254 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
256 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
258 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
259 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
260 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
263 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
264 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
265 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
266 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
267 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
269 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
271 * REMOVED configurations and files
273 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
275 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
276 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
277 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
278 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
279 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
280 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
281 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
282 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
283 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
284 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
285 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
287 * Changes to command line processing
289 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
290 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
292 * Changes to key bindings
294 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
296 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
298 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
300 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
303 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
305 Numerous documentation fixes.
307 Numerous testsuite fixes.
309 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
311 * New native configurations
313 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
314 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
315 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
316 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
318 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
322 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
324 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
326 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
328 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
329 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
330 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
331 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
332 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
334 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
335 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
336 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
337 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
338 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
339 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
340 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
341 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
343 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
344 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
346 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
347 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
348 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
351 * REMOVED configurations and files
353 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
354 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
356 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
360 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
362 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
363 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
368 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
370 * The MI enabled by default.
372 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
373 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
374 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
375 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
376 which is now deprecated.
378 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
380 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
381 main features are supported:
383 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
385 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
388 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
390 - a Pascal expression parser.
392 However, some important features are not yet supported.
394 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
396 - there are some problems with boolean types;
398 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
399 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
401 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
403 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
405 * Changes in completion.
407 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
408 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
409 users expect at the shell prompt.
411 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
412 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
413 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
414 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
415 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
416 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
417 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
419 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
421 * New platform-independent commands:
423 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
424 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
425 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
427 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
429 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
430 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
431 many threads as your system allows you to have.
433 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
435 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
436 multi-threaded programs though.
438 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
440 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
442 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
443 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
446 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
448 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
449 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
450 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
451 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
452 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
455 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
456 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
457 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
459 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
461 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
462 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
464 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
465 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
468 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
469 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
470 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
471 a given linear address.
473 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
474 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
475 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
477 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
479 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
481 * Changes in documentation.
483 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
484 Documentation License.
486 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
489 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
491 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
494 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
495 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
496 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
498 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
500 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
501 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
502 contents of this file.
506 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
508 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
510 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
512 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
513 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
514 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
515 greater level of detail.
517 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
519 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
520 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
521 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
524 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
526 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
527 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
528 machines ``out of the box''.
530 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
531 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
532 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
533 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
534 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
536 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
537 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
538 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
539 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
540 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
542 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
543 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
546 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
549 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
550 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
551 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
552 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
554 * New native configurations
556 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
557 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
561 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
562 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
563 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
564 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
566 * OBSOLETE configurations
568 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
569 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
571 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
574 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
575 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
576 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
577 be permanently REMOVED.
579 * Gould support removed
581 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
583 * New features for SVR4
585 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
586 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
587 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
589 * Many C++ enhancements
591 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
592 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
594 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
596 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
597 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
598 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
599 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
601 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
602 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
604 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
606 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
607 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
608 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
610 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
611 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
613 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
615 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
616 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
617 include ``set remote P-packet''.
619 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
621 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
622 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
623 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
625 * ``apropos'' command added.
627 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
628 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
629 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
633 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
634 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
635 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
636 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
637 enabled by configuring with:
639 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
641 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
643 * New native configurations
645 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
646 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
647 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
651 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
652 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
653 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
655 * OBSOLETE configurations
657 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
659 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
660 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
661 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
662 be permanently REMOVED.
666 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
667 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
668 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
669 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
670 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
671 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
672 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
677 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
679 * set extension-language
681 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
682 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
683 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
684 set extension-language .c c++
685 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
686 and their associated languages.
688 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
690 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
691 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
692 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
696 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
697 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
699 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
700 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
702 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
703 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
704 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
705 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
706 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
707 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
708 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
709 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
711 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
712 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
713 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
714 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
718 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
719 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
720 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
721 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
722 for xdb and dbx commands.
726 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
727 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
728 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
730 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
731 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
732 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
734 * Debugging across forks
736 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
741 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
742 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
743 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
745 * GDB remote protocol additions
747 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
748 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
749 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
750 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
752 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
753 full 64-bit address. The command
755 set remoteaddresssize 32
757 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
758 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
761 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
762 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
764 maint packet heythere
766 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
767 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
770 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
771 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
772 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
774 * Tracing can collect general expressions
776 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
777 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
778 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
780 * mask-address variable for Mips
782 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
783 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
784 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
786 * Higher serial baud rates
788 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
789 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
790 to achieve all of these rates.)
794 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
795 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
798 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
800 * New native configurations
802 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
803 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
804 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
805 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
806 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
807 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
808 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
812 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
813 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
814 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
815 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
816 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
817 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
818 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
819 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
820 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
821 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
822 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
824 * New debugging protocols
826 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
827 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
828 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
829 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
830 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
831 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
835 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
836 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
841 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
842 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
844 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
846 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
847 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
848 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
850 * Live range splitting
852 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
853 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
854 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
858 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
859 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
863 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
864 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
865 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
870 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
875 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
876 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
877 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
878 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
879 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
880 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
884 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
885 the symbol at the specified address.
889 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
890 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
891 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
892 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
893 file tracepoint.c for more details.
897 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
898 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
899 of most MIPS variants.
903 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
904 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
905 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
909 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
910 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
911 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
912 the possible architectures.
914 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
916 * New native configurations
918 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
919 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
920 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
921 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
922 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
923 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
927 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
928 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
929 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
930 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
931 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
933 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
937 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
938 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
939 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
940 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
941 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
945 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
947 * Windows 95/NT native
949 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
950 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
951 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
952 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
953 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
955 * dont-repeat command
957 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
958 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
959 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
960 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
962 * Send break instead of ^C
964 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
965 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
966 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
968 * Remote protocol timeout
970 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
971 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
972 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
974 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
976 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
977 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
978 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
979 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
980 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
982 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
983 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
984 automatically on hpux10.
986 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
988 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
990 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
992 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
993 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
994 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
995 every character. The default value is 1050.
997 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
999 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1000 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1001 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1002 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1003 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1004 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1006 * Speedups for remote debugging
1008 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1009 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1010 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1012 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1014 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1015 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1017 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1019 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1021 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1022 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1024 * Remote targets use caching
1026 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1027 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1028 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1029 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1030 off' turns the the data cache off.
1032 * Remote targets may have threads
1034 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1035 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1036 gdb/remote.c for details.
1040 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1041 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1042 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1043 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1044 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1045 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1046 sequence is something like
1048 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1050 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1054 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1055 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1056 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1057 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1058 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1059 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1060 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1061 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1065 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1066 but does simplify configuration and building.
1070 GDB now supports hpux10.
1072 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1074 * New native configurations
1076 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1077 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1078 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1079 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1083 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1084 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1085 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1086 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1089 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1091 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1092 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1093 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1094 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1095 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1097 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1099 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1100 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1103 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1105 To execute the command use:
1108 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1109 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1110 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1112 * New `if' and `while' commands
1114 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1115 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1116 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1117 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1118 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1119 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1120 if the expression is zero.
1122 * Fortran source language mode
1124 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1125 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1126 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1127 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1130 * Better HPUX support
1132 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1133 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1134 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1135 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1136 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1142 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1143 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1149 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1150 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1153 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1154 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1156 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1158 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1159 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1160 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1161 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1162 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1163 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1165 * New DOS host serial code
1167 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1168 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1171 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1173 * New "complete" command
1175 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1176 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1178 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1180 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1181 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1183 * Breakpoint hit counts
1185 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1186 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1187 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1188 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1189 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1192 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1194 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1195 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1196 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1198 * Shared library breakpoints
1200 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1201 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1203 * Hardware watchpoints
1205 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1206 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1208 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1212 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1213 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1215 * Improved Irix 5 support
1217 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1219 * Improved HPPA support
1221 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1223 * New native configurations
1225 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1226 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1227 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1228 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1232 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1233 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1236 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1238 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1239 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1243 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1244 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1246 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1248 * Irix 5 is now supported
1252 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1253 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1254 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1255 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1256 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1259 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1261 * User visible changes:
1265 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1266 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1267 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1268 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1269 debugging info for the mips target).
1271 * DEC Alpha native support
1273 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1274 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1275 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1276 Alpha-specific notes.
1278 * Preliminary thread implementation
1280 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1282 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1284 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1285 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1288 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1290 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1291 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1292 call methods, ...etc.
1294 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1296 * User visible changes:
1298 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1299 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1300 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1301 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1303 Filename completion now works.
1305 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1306 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1307 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1309 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1310 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1311 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1312 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1313 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1317 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1318 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1321 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1325 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1326 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1327 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1331 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1332 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1333 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1334 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1335 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1339 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1340 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1341 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1343 * New targets supported
1345 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1346 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1347 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1348 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1349 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1351 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1352 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1353 GO32 memory extender.
1355 * New remote protocols
1357 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1359 * New source languages supported
1361 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1362 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1363 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1366 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1368 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1370 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1371 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1372 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1373 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1374 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1375 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1377 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1379 * Faster and better demangling
1381 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1382 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1383 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1384 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1385 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1386 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1389 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1390 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1391 compiler does not actually implement.
1393 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1395 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1396 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1397 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1398 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1399 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1400 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1403 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1404 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1406 * Improved configure script
1408 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1409 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1410 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1411 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1413 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1414 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1415 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1416 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1417 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1418 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1420 * Documentation improvements
1422 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1423 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1424 before submitting changes.
1426 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1427 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1428 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1429 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1430 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1432 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1433 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1434 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1435 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1436 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1437 around this problem.
1441 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1442 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1443 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1446 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1447 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1449 * New native hosts supported
1451 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1452 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1454 * New targets supported
1456 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1458 * New file formats supported
1460 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1461 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1465 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1467 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1468 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1470 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1471 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1472 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1474 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1475 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1477 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1478 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1479 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1482 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1483 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1484 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1485 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1486 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1488 * Internal improvements
1490 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1491 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1493 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1494 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1495 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1496 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1497 shared code that handles any of them.
1499 * New command line options
1501 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1505 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1506 General Public License.
1508 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1510 * Host/native/target split
1512 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1513 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1514 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1515 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1516 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1518 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1519 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1520 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1521 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1522 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1523 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1524 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1526 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1527 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1528 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1530 * New hosts supported
1532 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1533 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1534 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1536 * New targets supported
1538 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1539 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1541 * New native hosts supported
1543 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1544 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1545 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1547 * New file formats supported
1549 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1550 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1551 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1555 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1556 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1557 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1559 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1561 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1562 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1563 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1564 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1568 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1569 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1570 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1572 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1576 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1577 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1580 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1581 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1583 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1584 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1585 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1586 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1587 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1588 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1590 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1591 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1592 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1593 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1597 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1598 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1599 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1600 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1601 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1603 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1604 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1605 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1606 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1610 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1611 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1612 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1613 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1614 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1615 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1616 each instruction being stepped through.
1618 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1619 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1621 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1622 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1623 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1624 processor with a serial port.
1628 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1629 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1630 supported, and what files each one uses.
1634 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1635 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1636 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1637 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1639 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1640 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1641 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1642 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1646 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1647 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1648 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1649 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1650 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1651 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1653 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1656 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1658 * Better support for C++ function names
1660 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1661 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1662 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1663 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1664 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1666 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1667 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1668 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1669 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1670 for the list of formats.
1672 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1674 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1675 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1676 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1677 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1678 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1679 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1682 * New 'maintenance' command
1684 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1685 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1686 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1688 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1689 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1690 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1691 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1692 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1693 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1695 The following commands are new:
1697 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1698 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1699 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1701 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1703 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1704 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1705 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1706 read after argv processing.
1708 * New hosts supported
1710 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1712 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1714 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1715 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1716 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1717 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1718 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1721 * New targets supported
1723 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1725 * More smarts about finding #include files
1727 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1728 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1729 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1730 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1731 the one that contains your sources.
1733 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1734 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1735 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1737 * Interesting infernals change
1739 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1740 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1741 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1742 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1744 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1746 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1747 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1748 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1750 See the ChangeLog for details.
1752 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1754 * New machines supported (host and target)
1756 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1758 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1760 * New malloc package
1762 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1763 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1764 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1765 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1766 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1767 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1771 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1772 'help info proc' for details.
1774 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1776 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1777 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1780 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1782 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1783 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1784 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1785 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1786 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1787 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1789 * Cross byte order fixes
1791 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1792 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1794 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1796 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1797 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1798 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1799 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1800 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1801 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1802 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1803 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1804 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1805 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1807 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1808 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1809 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1810 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1812 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1813 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1814 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1817 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1819 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1820 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1821 shared across multiple host platforms.
1823 * longjmp() handling
1825 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1826 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1827 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1828 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1832 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1833 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1838 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1839 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1840 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1842 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1844 * New machines supported (host and target)
1846 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1848 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1849 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1851 * New machines supported (target)
1853 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1857 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1858 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1859 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1861 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1862 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1863 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1864 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1865 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1868 * New features for SVR4
1870 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1871 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1872 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1874 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1875 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1876 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1878 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1879 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1881 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1883 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1884 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1885 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1886 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1887 same code linked statically.
1891 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1892 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1893 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1894 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1895 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1896 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1900 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1901 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1902 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1905 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1907 * New machines supported (host and target)
1909 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1910 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1911 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1913 * Almost SCO Unix support
1915 We had hoped to support:
1916 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1917 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1918 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1919 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1921 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1923 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1924 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1925 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1926 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1931 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1932 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1933 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1937 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1938 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1939 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1941 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1943 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1944 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1945 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1947 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1948 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1949 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1950 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1953 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1954 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1955 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1956 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1959 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1960 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1963 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1964 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1965 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1968 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1970 * Improved configuration
1972 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1973 Porting BFD is simpler.
1977 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1978 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1979 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1980 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1984 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1986 * New host supported (not target)
1988 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1991 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1993 * Multiple source language support
1995 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1996 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1997 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1998 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1999 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2000 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2004 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2005 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2006 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2007 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2009 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2010 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2011 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2013 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2014 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2018 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2019 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2020 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2021 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2024 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2026 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2027 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2028 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2029 examining core files.
2033 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2036 * New machines supported (host and target)
2038 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2039 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2040 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2042 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2044 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2046 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2048 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2049 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2050 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2052 * New remote interfaces
2058 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2062 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2064 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2065 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2066 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2067 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2068 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2069 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2070 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2071 stub on the target system.
2073 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2075 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2076 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2077 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2079 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2080 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2083 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2085 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2086 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2088 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2089 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2090 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2092 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2093 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2094 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2095 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2097 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2098 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2099 it is already running. Default is ON.
2101 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2102 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2103 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2104 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2107 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2108 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2109 or the value of the environment variable
2112 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2113 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2116 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2117 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2118 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2120 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2121 history expansion will be performed on
2122 command line input. The default is OFF.
2124 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2125 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2126 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2128 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2129 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2130 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2133 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2134 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2135 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2138 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2139 ``set width'' instead.
2141 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2142 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2143 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2144 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2146 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2149 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2152 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2155 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2158 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2160 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2161 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2162 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2166 * Support for Shared Libraries
2168 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2169 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2170 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2171 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2172 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2173 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2174 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2175 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2177 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2178 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2179 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2181 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2186 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2187 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2188 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2189 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2190 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2191 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2193 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2195 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2197 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2198 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2199 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2202 * C++ multiple inheritance
2204 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2207 * C++ exception handling
2209 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2210 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2211 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2214 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2215 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2216 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2218 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2219 current stack frame.
2222 * Minor command changes
2224 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2225 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2226 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2228 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2229 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2230 frames without printing.
2232 * New directory command
2234 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2235 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2236 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2237 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2238 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2240 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2242 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2245 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2246 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2247 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2248 where the program that you are debugging will run.