1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.1:
6 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
8 * Removed --with-mmalloc
10 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
11 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
13 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
15 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
16 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
17 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
18 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
20 * Revised SPARC target
22 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
23 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
24 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
25 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
26 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
30 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
31 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
32 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
35 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
37 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
38 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
41 * New native configurations
43 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
44 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
45 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
46 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
48 * New debugging protocols
50 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
52 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
54 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
55 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
56 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
58 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
60 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
61 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
62 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
65 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
66 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
67 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
68 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
69 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
70 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
71 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
72 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
73 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
75 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
77 * REMOVED configurations and files
79 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
80 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
81 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
82 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
83 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
84 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
85 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
86 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
87 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
88 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
89 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
90 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
91 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
92 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
93 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
94 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
95 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
97 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
101 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
104 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
106 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
107 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
108 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
111 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
112 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
117 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
118 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
119 remote protocol documentation for details.
121 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
123 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
124 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
125 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
128 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
130 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
131 per-thread variables.
133 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
135 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
136 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
138 * Separate debug info.
140 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
141 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
142 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
143 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
144 and optional debug files.
146 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
148 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
149 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
152 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
153 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
157 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
158 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
159 considered "useable".
161 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
163 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
164 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
167 * GDB supports logging output to a file
169 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
170 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
172 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
174 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
175 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
178 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
180 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
181 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
185 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
186 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
187 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
188 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
189 data, for more informative profiling results.
191 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
193 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
194 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
195 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
197 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
200 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
201 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
202 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
203 in a subsequent -var-update.
205 * New native configurations.
207 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
209 * Multi-arched targets.
211 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
212 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
214 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
216 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
217 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
218 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
221 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
222 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
223 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
224 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
225 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
226 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
227 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
228 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
229 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
230 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
231 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
232 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
234 * REMOVED configurations and files
237 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
238 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
239 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
240 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
241 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
242 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
244 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
245 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
246 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
247 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
248 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
249 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
251 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
253 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
254 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
255 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
256 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
257 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
259 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
261 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
263 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
264 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
265 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
266 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
267 shared libs like mad''.
269 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
271 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
272 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
273 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
274 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
276 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
278 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
279 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
282 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
283 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
285 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
286 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
288 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
289 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
290 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
291 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
293 * Multi-arched targets.
295 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
296 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
298 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
299 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
300 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
304 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
307 * New native configurations
309 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
310 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
311 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
312 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
314 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
316 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
317 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
318 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
321 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
322 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
323 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
324 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
325 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
326 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
327 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
328 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
329 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
330 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
332 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
333 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
337 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
339 * REMOVED configurations and files
341 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
342 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
343 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
344 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
345 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
347 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
349 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
351 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
352 commands. The default is 1024.
354 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
356 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
358 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
360 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
361 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
362 from a file into memory (restore).
364 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
366 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
367 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
368 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
370 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
378 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
379 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
380 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
382 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
383 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
384 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
386 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
387 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
388 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
390 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
391 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
392 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
394 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
396 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
398 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
399 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
400 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
401 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
402 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
403 (notably embedded) targets.
405 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
407 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
408 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
409 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
410 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
412 * New command line option
414 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
416 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
418 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
419 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
420 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
421 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
422 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
423 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
424 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
425 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
426 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
427 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
429 * Changes in ARM configurations.
431 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
432 configuration is fully multi-arch.
434 * New native configurations
436 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
437 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
438 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
439 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
443 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
445 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
447 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
448 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
449 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
452 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
453 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
454 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
455 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
456 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
458 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
460 * REMOVED configurations and files
462 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
464 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
465 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
466 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
467 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
468 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
469 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
470 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
471 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
472 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
473 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
474 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
476 * Changes to command line processing
478 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
479 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
481 * Changes to key bindings
483 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
485 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
487 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
489 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
492 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
494 Numerous documentation fixes.
496 Numerous testsuite fixes.
498 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
500 * New native configurations
502 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
503 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
504 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
505 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
507 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
511 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
513 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
515 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
517 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
518 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
519 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
520 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
521 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
523 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
524 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
525 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
526 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
527 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
528 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
529 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
530 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
532 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
533 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
535 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
536 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
537 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
540 * REMOVED configurations and files
542 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
543 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
545 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
549 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
551 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
552 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
557 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
559 * The MI enabled by default.
561 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
562 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
563 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
564 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
565 which is now deprecated.
567 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
569 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
570 main features are supported:
572 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
574 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
577 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
579 - a Pascal expression parser.
581 However, some important features are not yet supported.
583 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
585 - there are some problems with boolean types;
587 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
588 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
590 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
592 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
594 * Changes in completion.
596 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
597 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
598 users expect at the shell prompt.
600 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
601 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
602 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
603 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
604 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
605 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
606 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
608 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
610 * New platform-independent commands:
612 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
613 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
614 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
616 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
618 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
619 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
620 many threads as your system allows you to have.
622 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
624 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
625 multi-threaded programs though.
627 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
629 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
631 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
632 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
635 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
637 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
638 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
639 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
640 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
641 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
644 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
645 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
646 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
648 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
650 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
651 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
653 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
654 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
657 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
658 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
659 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
660 a given linear address.
662 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
663 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
664 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
666 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
668 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
670 * Changes in documentation.
672 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
673 Documentation License.
675 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
678 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
680 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
683 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
684 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
685 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
687 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
689 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
690 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
691 contents of this file.
695 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
697 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
699 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
701 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
702 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
703 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
704 greater level of detail.
706 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
708 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
709 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
710 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
713 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
715 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
716 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
717 machines ``out of the box''.
719 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
720 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
721 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
722 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
723 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
725 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
726 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
727 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
728 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
729 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
731 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
732 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
735 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
738 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
739 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
740 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
741 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
743 * New native configurations
745 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
746 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
750 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
751 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
752 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
753 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
755 * OBSOLETE configurations
757 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
758 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
760 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
763 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
764 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
765 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
766 be permanently REMOVED.
768 * Gould support removed
770 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
772 * New features for SVR4
774 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
775 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
776 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
778 * Many C++ enhancements
780 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
781 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
783 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
785 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
786 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
787 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
788 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
790 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
791 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
793 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
795 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
796 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
797 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
799 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
800 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
802 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
804 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
805 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
806 include ``set remote P-packet''.
808 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
810 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
811 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
812 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
814 * ``apropos'' command added.
816 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
817 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
818 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
822 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
823 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
824 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
825 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
826 enabled by configuring with:
828 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
830 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
832 * New native configurations
834 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
835 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
836 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
840 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
841 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
842 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
844 * OBSOLETE configurations
846 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
848 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
849 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
850 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
851 be permanently REMOVED.
855 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
856 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
857 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
858 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
859 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
860 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
861 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
866 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
868 * set extension-language
870 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
871 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
872 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
873 set extension-language .c c++
874 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
875 and their associated languages.
877 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
879 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
880 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
881 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
885 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
886 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
888 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
889 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
891 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
892 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
893 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
894 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
895 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
896 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
897 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
898 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
900 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
901 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
902 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
903 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
907 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
908 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
909 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
910 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
911 for xdb and dbx commands.
915 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
916 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
917 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
919 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
920 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
921 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
923 * Debugging across forks
925 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
930 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
931 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
932 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
934 * GDB remote protocol additions
936 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
937 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
938 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
939 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
941 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
942 full 64-bit address. The command
944 set remoteaddresssize 32
946 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
947 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
950 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
951 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
953 maint packet heythere
955 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
956 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
959 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
960 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
961 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
963 * Tracing can collect general expressions
965 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
966 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
967 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
969 * mask-address variable for Mips
971 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
972 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
973 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
975 * Higher serial baud rates
977 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
978 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
979 to achieve all of these rates.)
983 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
984 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
987 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
989 * New native configurations
991 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
992 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
993 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
994 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
995 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
996 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
997 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1001 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1002 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1003 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1004 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1005 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1006 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1007 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1008 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1009 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1010 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1011 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1013 * New debugging protocols
1015 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1016 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1017 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1018 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1019 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1020 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1024 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1025 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1030 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1031 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1033 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1035 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1036 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1037 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1039 * Live range splitting
1041 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1042 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1043 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1047 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1048 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1052 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1053 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1054 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1059 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1064 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1065 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1066 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1067 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1068 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1069 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1073 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1074 the symbol at the specified address.
1078 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1079 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1080 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1081 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1082 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1086 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1087 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1088 of most MIPS variants.
1092 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1093 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1094 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1098 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1099 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1100 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1101 the possible architectures.
1103 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1105 * New native configurations
1107 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1108 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1109 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1110 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1111 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1112 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1116 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1117 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1118 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1119 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1120 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1122 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1126 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1127 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1128 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1129 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1130 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1134 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1136 * Windows 95/NT native
1138 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1139 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1140 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1141 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1142 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1144 * dont-repeat command
1146 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1147 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1148 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1149 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1151 * Send break instead of ^C
1153 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1154 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1155 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1157 * Remote protocol timeout
1159 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1160 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1161 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1163 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1165 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1166 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1167 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1168 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1169 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1171 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1172 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1173 automatically on hpux10.
1175 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1177 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1179 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1181 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1182 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1183 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1184 every character. The default value is 1050.
1186 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1188 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1189 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1190 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1191 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1192 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1193 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1195 * Speedups for remote debugging
1197 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1198 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1199 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1201 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1203 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1204 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1206 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1208 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1210 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1211 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1213 * Remote targets use caching
1215 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1216 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1217 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1218 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1219 off' turns the the data cache off.
1221 * Remote targets may have threads
1223 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1224 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1225 gdb/remote.c for details.
1229 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1230 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1231 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1232 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1233 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1234 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1235 sequence is something like
1237 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1239 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1243 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1244 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1245 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1246 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1247 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1248 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1249 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1250 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1254 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1255 but does simplify configuration and building.
1259 GDB now supports hpux10.
1261 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1263 * New native configurations
1265 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1266 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1267 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1268 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1272 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1273 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1274 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1275 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1278 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1280 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1281 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1282 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1283 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1284 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1286 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1288 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1289 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1292 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1294 To execute the command use:
1297 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1298 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1299 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1301 * New `if' and `while' commands
1303 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1304 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1305 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1306 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1307 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1308 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1309 if the expression is zero.
1311 * Fortran source language mode
1313 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1314 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1315 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1316 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1319 * Better HPUX support
1321 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1322 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1323 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1324 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1325 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1331 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1332 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1338 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1339 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1342 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1343 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1345 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1347 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1348 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1349 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1350 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1351 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1352 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1354 * New DOS host serial code
1356 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1357 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1360 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1362 * New "complete" command
1364 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1365 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1367 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1369 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1370 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1372 * Breakpoint hit counts
1374 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1375 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1376 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1377 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1378 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1381 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1383 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1384 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1385 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1387 * Shared library breakpoints
1389 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1390 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1392 * Hardware watchpoints
1394 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1395 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1397 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1401 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1402 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1404 * Improved Irix 5 support
1406 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1408 * Improved HPPA support
1410 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1412 * New native configurations
1414 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1415 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1416 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1417 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1421 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1422 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1425 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1427 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1428 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1432 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1433 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1435 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1437 * Irix 5 is now supported
1441 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1442 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1443 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1444 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1445 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1448 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1450 * User visible changes:
1454 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1455 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1456 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1457 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1458 debugging info for the mips target).
1460 * DEC Alpha native support
1462 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1463 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1464 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1465 Alpha-specific notes.
1467 * Preliminary thread implementation
1469 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1471 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1473 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1474 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1477 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1479 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1480 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1481 call methods, ...etc.
1483 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1485 * User visible changes:
1487 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1488 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1489 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1490 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1492 Filename completion now works.
1494 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1495 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1496 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1498 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1499 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1500 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1501 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1502 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1506 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1507 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1510 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1514 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1515 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1516 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1520 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1521 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1522 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1523 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1524 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1528 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1529 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1530 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1532 * New targets supported
1534 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1535 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1536 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1537 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1538 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1540 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1541 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1542 GO32 memory extender.
1544 * New remote protocols
1546 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1548 * New source languages supported
1550 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1551 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1552 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1555 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1557 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1559 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1560 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1561 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1562 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1563 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1564 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1566 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1568 * Faster and better demangling
1570 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1571 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1572 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1573 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1574 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1575 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1578 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1579 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1580 compiler does not actually implement.
1582 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1584 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1585 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1586 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1587 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1588 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1589 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1592 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1593 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1595 * Improved configure script
1597 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1598 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1599 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1600 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1602 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1603 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1604 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1605 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1606 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1607 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1609 * Documentation improvements
1611 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1612 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1613 before submitting changes.
1615 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1616 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1617 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1618 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1619 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1621 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1622 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1623 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1624 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1625 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1626 around this problem.
1630 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1631 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1632 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1635 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1636 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1638 * New native hosts supported
1640 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1641 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1643 * New targets supported
1645 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1647 * New file formats supported
1649 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1650 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1654 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1656 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1657 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1659 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1660 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1661 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1663 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1664 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1666 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1667 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1668 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1671 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1672 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1673 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1674 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1675 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1677 * Internal improvements
1679 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1680 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1682 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1683 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1684 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1685 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1686 shared code that handles any of them.
1688 * New command line options
1690 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1694 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1695 General Public License.
1697 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1699 * Host/native/target split
1701 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1702 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1703 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1704 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1705 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1707 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1708 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1709 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1710 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1711 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1712 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1713 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1715 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1716 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1717 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1719 * New hosts supported
1721 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1722 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1723 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1725 * New targets supported
1727 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1728 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1730 * New native hosts supported
1732 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1733 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1734 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1736 * New file formats supported
1738 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1739 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1740 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1744 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1745 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1746 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1748 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1750 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1751 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1752 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1753 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1757 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1758 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1759 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1761 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1765 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1766 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1769 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1770 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1772 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1773 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1774 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1775 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1776 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1777 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1779 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1780 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1781 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1782 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1786 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1787 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1788 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1789 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1790 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1792 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1793 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1794 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1795 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1799 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1800 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1801 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1802 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1803 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1804 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1805 each instruction being stepped through.
1807 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1808 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1810 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1811 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1812 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1813 processor with a serial port.
1817 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1818 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1819 supported, and what files each one uses.
1823 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1824 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1825 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1826 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1828 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1829 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1830 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1831 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1835 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1836 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1837 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1838 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1839 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1840 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1842 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1845 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1847 * Better support for C++ function names
1849 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1850 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1851 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1852 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1853 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1855 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1856 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1857 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1858 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1859 for the list of formats.
1861 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1863 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1864 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1865 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1866 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1867 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1868 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1871 * New 'maintenance' command
1873 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1874 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1875 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1877 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1878 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1879 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1880 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1881 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1882 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1884 The following commands are new:
1886 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1887 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1888 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1890 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1892 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1893 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1894 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1895 read after argv processing.
1897 * New hosts supported
1899 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1901 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1903 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1904 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1905 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1906 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1907 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1910 * New targets supported
1912 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1914 * More smarts about finding #include files
1916 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1917 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1918 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1919 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1920 the one that contains your sources.
1922 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1923 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1924 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1926 * Interesting infernals change
1928 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1929 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1930 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1931 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1933 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1935 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1936 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1937 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1939 See the ChangeLog for details.
1941 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1943 * New machines supported (host and target)
1945 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1947 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1949 * New malloc package
1951 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1952 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1953 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1954 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1955 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1956 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1960 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1961 'help info proc' for details.
1963 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1965 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1966 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1969 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1971 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1972 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1973 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1974 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1975 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1976 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1978 * Cross byte order fixes
1980 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1981 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1983 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1985 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1986 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1987 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1988 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1989 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1990 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1991 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1992 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1993 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1994 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1996 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1997 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1998 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1999 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2001 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2002 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2003 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2006 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2008 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2009 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2010 shared across multiple host platforms.
2012 * longjmp() handling
2014 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2015 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2016 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2017 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2021 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2022 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2027 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2028 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2029 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2031 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2033 * New machines supported (host and target)
2035 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2037 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2038 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2040 * New machines supported (target)
2042 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2046 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2047 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2048 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2050 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2051 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2052 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2053 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2054 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2057 * New features for SVR4
2059 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2060 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2061 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2063 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2064 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2065 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2067 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2068 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2070 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2072 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2073 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2074 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2075 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2076 same code linked statically.
2080 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2081 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2082 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2083 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2084 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2085 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2089 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2090 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2091 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2094 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2096 * New machines supported (host and target)
2098 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2099 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2100 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2102 * Almost SCO Unix support
2104 We had hoped to support:
2105 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2106 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2107 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2108 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2110 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2112 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2113 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2114 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2115 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2120 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2121 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2122 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2126 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2127 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2128 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2130 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2132 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2133 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2134 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2136 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2137 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2138 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2139 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2142 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2143 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2144 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2145 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2148 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2149 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2152 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2153 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2154 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2157 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2159 * Improved configuration
2161 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2162 Porting BFD is simpler.
2166 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2167 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2168 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2169 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2173 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2175 * New host supported (not target)
2177 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2180 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2182 * Multiple source language support
2184 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2185 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2186 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2187 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2188 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2189 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2193 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2194 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2195 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2196 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2198 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2199 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2200 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2202 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2203 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2207 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2208 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2209 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2210 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2213 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2215 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2216 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2217 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2218 examining core files.
2222 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2225 * New machines supported (host and target)
2227 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2228 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2229 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2231 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2233 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2235 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2237 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2238 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2239 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2241 * New remote interfaces
2247 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2251 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2253 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2254 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2255 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2256 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2257 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2258 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2259 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2260 stub on the target system.
2262 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2264 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2265 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2266 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2268 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2269 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2272 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2274 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2275 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2277 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2278 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2279 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2281 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2282 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2283 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2284 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2286 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2287 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2288 it is already running. Default is ON.
2290 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2291 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2292 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2293 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2296 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2297 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2298 or the value of the environment variable
2301 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2302 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2305 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2306 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2307 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2309 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2310 history expansion will be performed on
2311 command line input. The default is OFF.
2313 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2314 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2315 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2317 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2318 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2319 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2322 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2323 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2324 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2327 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2328 ``set width'' instead.
2330 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2331 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2332 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2333 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2335 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2338 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2341 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2344 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2347 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2349 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2350 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2351 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2355 * Support for Shared Libraries
2357 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2358 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2359 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2360 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2361 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2362 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2363 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2364 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2366 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2367 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2368 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2370 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2375 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2376 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2377 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2378 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2379 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2380 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2382 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2384 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2386 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2387 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2388 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2391 * C++ multiple inheritance
2393 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2396 * C++ exception handling
2398 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2399 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2400 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2403 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2404 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2405 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2407 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2408 current stack frame.
2411 * Minor command changes
2413 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2414 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2415 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2417 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2418 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2419 frames without printing.
2421 * New directory command
2423 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2424 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2425 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2426 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2427 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2429 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2431 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2434 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2435 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2436 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2437 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob