1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * Process record and replay
8 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
9 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
10 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
13 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
14 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
15 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
18 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
19 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
22 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
23 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
24 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
25 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
26 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
27 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
28 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
29 the installation instructions for more information.
31 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
32 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
33 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
34 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
36 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
37 now complete on file names.
39 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
40 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
41 For instance, consider:
43 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
44 # struct example variable;
47 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
48 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
50 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
51 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
54 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
55 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
56 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
61 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
64 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
65 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
66 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
69 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
70 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
73 Obtains additional operating system information
77 Read or write additional signal information.
79 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
81 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
82 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
83 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
85 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
88 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
89 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
91 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
92 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
93 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
95 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
96 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
98 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
100 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
102 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
103 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
105 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
106 list of section offsets.
108 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
109 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
110 have also been fixed.
112 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
113 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
114 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
116 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
119 template<typename T> class C { };
122 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
124 ptype C<char const *>
126 ptype C<const char *>
129 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
131 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
132 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
134 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
135 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
136 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
138 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
139 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
141 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
146 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
147 available is determined at configure time.
149 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
151 * Ada tasking support
153 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
157 Print the list of Ada tasks.
159 Print detailed information about task number N.
161 Print the task number of the current task.
163 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
165 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
166 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
168 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
170 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
172 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
174 maint set python print-stack
175 maint show python print-stack
176 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
179 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
184 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
188 Show operating system information about processes.
192 set sh calling-convention
193 show sh calling-convention
194 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
196 set print symbol-loading
197 show print symbol-loading
198 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
202 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
204 set disassemble-next-line
205 show disassemble-next-line
206 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
209 set remote noack-packet
210 show remote noack-packet
211 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
212 under "New remote packets."
214 set remote query-attached-packet
215 show remote query-attached-packet
216 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
218 set remote read-siginfo-object
219 show remote read-siginfo-object
220 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
223 set remote write-siginfo-object
224 show remote write-siginfo-object
225 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
228 set displaced-stepping
229 show displaced-stepping
230 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
231 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
232 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
236 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
238 maint set internal-error
239 maint show internal-error
240 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
242 maint set internal-warning
243 maint show internal-warning
244 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
249 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
251 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
252 show multiple-symbols
253 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
254 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
255 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
257 set breakpoint always-inserted
258 show breakpoint always-inserted
259 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
260 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
261 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
263 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
264 show arm fallback-mode
265 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
267 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
268 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
269 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
270 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
272 set disable-randomization
273 show disable-randomization
274 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
275 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
276 multiple debugging sessions.
280 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
285 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
286 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
287 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
288 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
290 set target-wide-charset
291 show target-wide-charset
292 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
293 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
295 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
297 set tcp connect-timeout
298 show tcp connect-timeout
299 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
300 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
301 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
303 set libthread-db-search-path
304 show libthread-db-search-path
305 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
308 * New native configurations
310 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
312 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
316 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
317 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
319 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
320 (mingw32ce) debugging.
326 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
328 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
330 * New native configurations
332 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
333 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
337 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
338 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
340 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
342 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
343 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
344 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
345 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
347 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
348 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
350 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
353 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
354 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
355 and in inlined functions.
357 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
358 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
359 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
361 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
363 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
364 registers on PowerPC targets.
366 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
367 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
369 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
370 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
372 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
373 extended-remote mode.
375 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
376 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
377 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
378 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
380 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
381 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
382 target architectures.
384 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
385 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
386 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
387 stored in two consecutive float registers.
389 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
392 * Improved support for debugging Ada
393 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
395 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
396 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
397 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
398 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
400 - Improved command completion in Ada
403 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
408 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
409 show print frame-arguments
410 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
411 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
416 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
423 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
432 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
435 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
439 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
441 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
443 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
444 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
445 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
447 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
448 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
449 -Bsymbolic linker option.
451 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
452 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
455 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
456 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
458 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
459 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
461 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
463 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
464 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
465 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
467 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
468 automatically displayed as character or string data.
470 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
471 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
474 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
475 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
476 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
478 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
481 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
482 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
483 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
485 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
487 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
489 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
490 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
491 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
493 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
494 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
496 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
497 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
498 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
499 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
500 Windows and SymbianOS).
502 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
503 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
505 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
506 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
512 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
513 when debugging using remote targets.
515 set mem inaccessible-by-default
516 show mem inaccessible-by-default
517 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
518 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
519 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
520 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
521 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
523 set breakpoint auto-hw
524 show breakpoint auto-hw
525 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
526 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
527 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
528 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
529 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
530 including "next" and "finish".
533 catch exception unhandled
534 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
537 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
541 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
542 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
543 an alias to "set sysroot".
546 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
547 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
550 * New native configurations
552 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
557 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
558 not query the target for its built-in description.
562 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
563 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
564 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
569 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
570 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
573 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
578 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
579 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
581 qXfer:libraries:read:
582 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
583 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
584 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
585 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
589 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
598 i[34567]86-*-netware*
599 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
600 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
602 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
605 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
606 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
615 * Other removed features
622 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
629 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
634 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
635 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
640 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
641 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
643 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
645 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
646 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
647 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
648 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
652 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
653 in debugging information.
657 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
658 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
660 set mips stack-arg-size
661 set mips saved-gpreg-size
663 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
665 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
670 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
672 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
673 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
674 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
676 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
677 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
680 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
681 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
683 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
684 stub provides the required support.
686 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
687 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
692 unset substitute-path
694 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
695 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
696 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
697 between compilation and debugging.
701 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
702 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
703 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
707 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
709 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
710 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
712 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
717 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
718 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
719 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
720 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
724 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
725 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
727 qXfer:memory-map:read:
728 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
729 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
734 Erase and program a flash memory device.
736 * Removed remote packets
739 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
740 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
742 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
746 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
748 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
752 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
753 only if it doesn't already have a value.
755 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
757 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
759 restart <n> Return the program state to a
760 previously saved state.
762 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
764 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
766 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
767 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
769 info forks List forks of the user program that
770 are available to be debugged.
772 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
773 forks of the user program that are
774 available to be debugged.
776 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
777 that are available to be debugged (and
778 kill the forked process).
780 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
781 that are available to be debugged (and
782 allow the process to continue).
786 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
788 * Improved Windows host support
790 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
791 native console support, and remote communications using either
792 network sockets or serial ports.
794 * Improved Modula-2 language support
796 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
797 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
798 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
799 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
800 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
801 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
805 The ARM rdi-share module.
807 The Netware NLM debug server.
809 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
811 * New native configurations
813 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
814 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
818 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
820 * New command line options
822 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
823 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
824 the child (debugged) program exited with.
825 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
826 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
827 specified multiple times and in conjunction
828 with the --command (-x) option.
830 * Deprecated commands removed
832 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
836 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
837 othernames set arm disassembler
838 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
839 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
840 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
843 * New BSD user-level threads support
845 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
846 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
849 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
850 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
851 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
853 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
854 are not yet supported.
856 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
857 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
859 * REMOVED configurations and files
861 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
862 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
863 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
865 * New "set print array-indexes" command
867 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
868 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
871 * VAX floating point support
873 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
875 * User-defined command support
877 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
878 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
879 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
881 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
883 * New command line option
885 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
888 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
890 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
891 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
892 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
893 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
894 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
896 * Internationalization
898 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
899 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
900 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
904 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
905 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
906 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
908 * New native configurations
910 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
914 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
915 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
917 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
919 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
920 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
921 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
924 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
925 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
926 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
938 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
939 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
941 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
943 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
944 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
945 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
955 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
957 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
959 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
960 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
963 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
965 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
966 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
967 IRIX long double values).
971 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
972 command. This problem has been fixed.
974 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
976 * Fix for ``many threads''
978 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
979 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
982 ptrace: No such process.
983 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
985 This problem has been fixed.
987 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
989 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
992 * New ``start'' command.
994 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
996 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
998 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
999 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1000 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1002 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1003 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1004 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1005 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1006 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1007 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1008 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1009 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1010 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1012 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1014 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1015 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1016 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1017 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1018 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1020 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1021 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1022 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1024 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1026 * New native configurations
1028 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1029 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1030 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1031 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1032 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1033 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1034 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1036 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1038 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1039 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1040 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1041 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1042 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1043 work, was also included.
1045 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1046 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1056 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1057 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1059 * REMOVED configurations and files
1061 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1062 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1063 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1064 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1065 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1066 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1067 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1068 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1069 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1070 sonymips mips-sony-*
1071 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1073 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1075 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1077 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1078 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1079 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1080 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1083 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1085 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1086 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1087 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1088 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1089 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1090 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1093 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1095 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1097 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1098 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1099 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1101 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1103 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1104 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1106 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1108 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1109 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1110 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1112 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1114 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1115 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1117 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1119 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1120 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1121 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1123 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1125 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1126 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1127 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1129 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1131 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1133 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1134 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1136 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1138 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1139 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1140 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1141 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1143 * Revised SPARC target
1145 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1146 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1147 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1148 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1149 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1153 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1154 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1155 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1158 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1160 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1161 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1164 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1166 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1167 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1168 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1169 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1170 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1171 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1172 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1173 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1174 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1176 * New native configurations
1178 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1179 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1180 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1181 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1182 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1184 * New debugging protocols
1186 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1188 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1190 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1191 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1192 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1194 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1196 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1197 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1198 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1199 permanently REMOVED.
1201 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1202 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1203 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1204 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1205 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1206 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1207 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1208 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1209 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1210 sonymips mips-sony-*
1211 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1213 * REMOVED configurations and files
1215 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1216 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1217 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1218 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1219 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1220 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1221 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1222 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1223 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1224 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1225 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1226 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1227 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1228 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1229 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1230 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1231 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1233 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1237 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1238 integrated into GDB.
1240 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1242 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1243 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1244 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1247 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1248 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1249 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1253 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1254 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1255 remote protocol documentation for details.
1257 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1259 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1260 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1261 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1264 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1266 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1267 per-thread variables.
1269 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1271 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1272 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1274 * Separate debug info.
1276 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1277 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1278 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1279 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1280 and optional debug files.
1282 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1284 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1285 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1288 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1289 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1293 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1294 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1295 considered "useable".
1297 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1299 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1300 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1303 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1305 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1306 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1308 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1310 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1311 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1314 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1316 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1317 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1321 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1322 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1323 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1324 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1325 data, for more informative profiling results.
1327 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1329 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1330 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1331 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1333 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1336 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1337 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1338 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1339 in a subsequent -var-update.
1341 * New native configurations.
1343 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1345 * Multi-arched targets.
1347 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1348 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1350 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1352 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1353 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1354 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1355 permanently REMOVED.
1357 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1358 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1359 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1360 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1361 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1362 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1363 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1364 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1365 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1366 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1367 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1368 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1370 * REMOVED configurations and files
1373 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1374 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1375 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1376 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1377 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1378 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1380 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1381 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1382 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1383 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1384 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1385 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1387 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1389 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1390 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1391 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1392 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1393 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1395 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1397 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1399 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1400 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1401 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1402 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1403 shared libs like mad''.
1405 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1407 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1408 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1409 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1410 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1412 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1414 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1415 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1418 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1419 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1421 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1422 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1424 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1425 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1426 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1427 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1429 * Multi-arched targets.
1431 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1432 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1434 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1435 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1436 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1440 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1443 * New native configurations
1445 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1446 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1447 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1448 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1450 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1452 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1453 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1454 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1455 permanently REMOVED.
1457 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1458 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1459 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1460 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1461 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1462 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1463 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1464 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1465 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1466 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1468 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1469 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1471 * OBSOLETE languages
1473 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1475 * REMOVED configurations and files
1477 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1478 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1479 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1480 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1481 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1483 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1485 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1487 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1488 commands. The default is 1024.
1490 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1492 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1494 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1496 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1497 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1498 from a file into memory (restore).
1500 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1502 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1503 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1504 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1506 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1514 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1515 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1516 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1518 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1519 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1520 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1522 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1523 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1524 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1526 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1527 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1528 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1530 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1532 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1534 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1535 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1536 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1537 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1538 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1539 (notably embedded) targets.
1541 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1543 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1544 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1545 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1546 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1548 * New command line option
1550 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1552 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1554 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1555 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1556 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1557 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1558 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1559 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1560 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1561 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1562 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1563 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1565 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1567 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1568 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1570 * New native configurations
1572 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1573 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1574 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1575 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1579 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1581 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1583 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1584 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1585 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1586 permanently REMOVED.
1588 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1589 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1590 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1591 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1592 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1594 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1596 * REMOVED configurations and files
1598 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1600 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1601 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1602 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1603 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1604 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1605 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1606 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1607 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1608 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1609 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1610 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1612 * Changes to command line processing
1614 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1615 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1617 * Changes to key bindings
1619 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1621 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1623 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1625 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1628 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1630 Numerous documentation fixes.
1632 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1634 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1636 * New native configurations
1638 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1639 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1640 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1641 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1642 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1643 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1647 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1649 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1651 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1653 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1654 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1655 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1656 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1657 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1659 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1660 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1661 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1662 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1663 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1664 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1665 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1666 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1668 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1669 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1671 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1672 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1673 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1674 permanently REMOVED.
1676 * REMOVED configurations and files
1678 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1679 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1681 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1685 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1687 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1688 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1693 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1695 * The MI enabled by default.
1697 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1698 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1699 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1700 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1701 which is now deprecated.
1703 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1705 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1706 main features are supported:
1708 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1710 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1713 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1715 - a Pascal expression parser.
1717 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1719 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1721 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1723 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1724 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1726 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1728 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1730 * Changes in completion.
1732 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1733 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1734 users expect at the shell prompt.
1736 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1737 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1738 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1739 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1740 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1741 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1742 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1744 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1746 * New platform-independent commands:
1748 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1749 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1750 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1752 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1754 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1755 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1756 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1758 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1760 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1761 multi-threaded programs though.
1763 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1765 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1767 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1768 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1771 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1773 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1774 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1775 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1776 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1777 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1780 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1781 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1782 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1784 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1786 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1787 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1789 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1790 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1793 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1794 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1795 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1796 a given linear address.
1798 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1799 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1800 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1802 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1804 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1806 * Changes in documentation.
1808 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1809 Documentation License.
1811 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1814 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1816 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1819 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1820 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1821 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1823 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1825 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1826 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1827 contents of this file.
1831 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1833 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1835 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1837 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1838 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1839 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1840 greater level of detail.
1842 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1844 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1845 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1846 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1849 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1851 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1852 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1853 machines ``out of the box''.
1855 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1856 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1857 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1858 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1859 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1861 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1862 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1863 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1864 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1865 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1867 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1868 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1871 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1874 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1875 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1876 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1877 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1879 * New native configurations
1881 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1882 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1886 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1887 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1888 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1889 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1891 * OBSOLETE configurations
1893 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1894 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1896 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1899 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1900 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1901 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1902 be permanently REMOVED.
1904 * Gould support removed
1906 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1908 * New features for SVR4
1910 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1911 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1912 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1914 * Many C++ enhancements
1916 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1917 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1919 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1921 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1922 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1923 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1924 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1926 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1927 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1929 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1931 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1932 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1933 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1935 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1936 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1938 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1940 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1941 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1942 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1944 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1946 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1947 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1948 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1950 * ``apropos'' command added.
1952 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1953 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1954 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1958 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1959 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1960 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1961 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1962 enabled by configuring with:
1964 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1966 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1968 * New native configurations
1970 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1971 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1972 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1976 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1977 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1978 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1980 * OBSOLETE configurations
1982 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1984 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1985 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1986 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1987 be permanently REMOVED.
1991 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1992 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1993 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1994 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1995 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1996 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1997 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2002 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2004 * set extension-language
2006 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2007 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2008 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2009 set extension-language .c c++
2010 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2011 and their associated languages.
2013 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2015 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2016 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2017 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2021 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2022 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2024 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2025 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2027 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2028 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2029 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2030 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2031 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2032 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2033 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2034 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2036 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2037 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2038 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2039 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2043 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2044 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2045 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2046 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2047 for xdb and dbx commands.
2051 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2052 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2053 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2055 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2056 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2057 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2059 * Debugging across forks
2061 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2066 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2067 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2068 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2070 * GDB remote protocol additions
2072 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2073 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2074 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2075 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2077 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2078 full 64-bit address. The command
2080 set remoteaddresssize 32
2082 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2083 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2086 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2087 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2089 maint packet heythere
2091 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2092 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2095 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2096 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2097 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2099 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2101 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2102 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2103 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2105 * mask-address variable for Mips
2107 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2108 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2109 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2111 * Higher serial baud rates
2113 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2114 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2115 to achieve all of these rates.)
2119 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2120 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2123 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2125 * New native configurations
2127 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2128 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2129 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2130 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2131 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2132 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2133 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2137 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2138 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2139 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2140 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2141 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2142 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2143 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2144 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2145 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2146 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2147 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2149 * New debugging protocols
2151 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2152 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2153 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2154 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2155 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2156 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2160 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2161 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2166 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2167 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2169 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2171 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2172 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2173 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2175 * Live range splitting
2177 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2178 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2179 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2183 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2184 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2188 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2189 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2190 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2195 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2200 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2201 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2202 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2203 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2204 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2205 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2209 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2210 the symbol at the specified address.
2214 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2215 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2216 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2217 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2218 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2222 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2223 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2224 of most MIPS variants.
2228 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2229 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2230 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2234 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2235 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2236 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2237 the possible architectures.
2239 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2241 * New native configurations
2243 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2244 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2245 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2246 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2247 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2248 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2252 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2253 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2254 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2255 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2256 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2258 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2262 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2263 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2264 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2265 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2266 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2270 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2272 * Windows 95/NT native
2274 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2275 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2276 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2277 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2278 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2280 * dont-repeat command
2282 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2283 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2284 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2285 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2287 * Send break instead of ^C
2289 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2290 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2291 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2293 * Remote protocol timeout
2295 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2296 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2297 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2299 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2301 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2302 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2303 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2304 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2305 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2307 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2308 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2309 automatically on hpux10.
2311 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2313 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2315 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2317 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2318 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2319 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2320 every character. The default value is 1050.
2322 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2324 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2325 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2326 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2327 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2328 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2329 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2331 * Speedups for remote debugging
2333 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2334 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2335 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2337 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2339 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2340 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2342 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2344 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2346 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2347 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2349 * Remote targets use caching
2351 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2352 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2353 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2354 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2355 off' turns the the data cache off.
2357 * Remote targets may have threads
2359 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2360 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2361 gdb/remote.c for details.
2365 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2366 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2367 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2368 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2369 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2370 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2371 sequence is something like
2373 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2375 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2379 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2380 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2381 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2382 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2383 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2384 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2385 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2386 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2390 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2391 but does simplify configuration and building.
2395 GDB now supports hpux10.
2397 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2399 * New native configurations
2401 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2402 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2403 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2404 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2408 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2409 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2410 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2411 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2414 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2416 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2417 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2418 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2419 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2420 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2422 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2424 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2425 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2428 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2430 To execute the command use:
2433 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2434 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2435 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2437 * New `if' and `while' commands
2439 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2440 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2441 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2442 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2443 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2444 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2445 if the expression is zero.
2447 * Fortran source language mode
2449 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2450 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2451 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2452 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2455 * Better HPUX support
2457 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2458 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2459 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2460 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2461 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2467 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2468 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2474 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2475 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2478 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2479 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2481 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2483 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2484 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2485 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2486 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2487 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2488 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2490 * New DOS host serial code
2492 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2493 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2496 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2498 * New "complete" command
2500 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2501 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2503 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2505 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2506 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2508 * Breakpoint hit counts
2510 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2511 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2512 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2513 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2514 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2517 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2519 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2520 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2521 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2523 * Shared library breakpoints
2525 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2526 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2528 * Hardware watchpoints
2530 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2531 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2533 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2537 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2538 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2540 * Improved Irix 5 support
2542 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2544 * Improved HPPA support
2546 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2548 * New native configurations
2550 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2551 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2552 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2553 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2557 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2558 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2561 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2563 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2564 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2568 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2569 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2571 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2573 * Irix 5 is now supported
2577 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2578 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2579 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2580 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2581 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2584 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2586 * User visible changes:
2590 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2591 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2592 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2593 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2594 debugging info for the mips target).
2596 * DEC Alpha native support
2598 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2599 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2600 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2601 Alpha-specific notes.
2603 * Preliminary thread implementation
2605 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2607 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2609 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2610 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2613 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2615 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2616 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2617 call methods, ...etc.
2619 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2621 * User visible changes:
2623 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2624 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2625 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2626 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2628 Filename completion now works.
2630 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2631 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2632 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2634 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2635 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2636 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2637 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2638 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2642 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2643 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2646 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2650 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2651 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2652 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2656 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2657 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2658 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2659 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2660 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2664 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2665 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2666 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2668 * New targets supported
2670 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2671 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2672 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2673 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2674 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2676 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2677 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2678 GO32 memory extender.
2680 * New remote protocols
2682 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2684 * New source languages supported
2686 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2687 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2688 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2691 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2693 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2695 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2696 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2697 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2698 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2699 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2700 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2702 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2704 * Faster and better demangling
2706 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2707 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2708 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2709 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2710 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2711 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2714 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2715 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2716 compiler does not actually implement.
2718 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2720 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2721 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2722 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2723 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2724 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2725 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2728 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2729 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2731 * Improved configure script
2733 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2734 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2735 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2736 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2738 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2739 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2740 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2741 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2742 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2743 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2745 * Documentation improvements
2747 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2748 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2749 before submitting changes.
2751 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2752 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2753 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2754 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2755 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2757 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2758 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2759 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2760 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2761 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2762 around this problem.
2766 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2767 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2768 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2771 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2772 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2774 * New native hosts supported
2776 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2777 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2779 * New targets supported
2781 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2783 * New file formats supported
2785 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2786 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2790 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2792 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2793 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2795 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2796 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2797 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2799 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2800 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2802 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2803 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2804 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2807 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2808 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2809 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2810 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2811 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2813 * Internal improvements
2815 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2816 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2818 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2819 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2820 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2821 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2822 shared code that handles any of them.
2824 * New command line options
2826 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2830 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2831 General Public License.
2833 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2835 * Host/native/target split
2837 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2838 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2839 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2840 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2841 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2843 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2844 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2845 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2846 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2847 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2848 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2849 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2851 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2852 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2853 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2855 * New hosts supported
2857 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2858 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2859 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2861 * New targets supported
2863 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2864 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2866 * New native hosts supported
2868 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2869 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2870 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2872 * New file formats supported
2874 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2875 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2876 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2880 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2881 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2882 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2884 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2886 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2887 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2888 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2889 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2893 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2894 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2895 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2897 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2901 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2902 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2905 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2906 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2908 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2909 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2910 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2911 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2912 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2913 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2915 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2916 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2917 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2918 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2922 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2923 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2924 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2925 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2926 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2928 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2929 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2930 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2931 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2935 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2936 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2937 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2938 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2939 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2940 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2941 each instruction being stepped through.
2943 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2944 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2946 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2947 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2948 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2949 processor with a serial port.
2953 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2954 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2955 supported, and what files each one uses.
2959 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2960 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2961 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2962 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2964 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2965 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2966 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2967 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2971 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2972 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2973 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2974 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2975 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2976 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2978 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2981 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2983 * Better support for C++ function names
2985 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2986 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2987 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2988 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2989 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2991 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2992 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2993 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2994 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2995 for the list of formats.
2997 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2999 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3000 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3001 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3002 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3003 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3004 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3007 * New 'maintenance' command
3009 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3010 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3011 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3013 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3014 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3015 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3016 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3017 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3018 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3020 The following commands are new:
3022 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3023 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3024 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3026 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3028 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3029 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3030 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3031 read after argv processing.
3033 * New hosts supported
3035 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3037 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3039 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3040 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3041 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3042 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3043 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3046 * New targets supported
3048 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3050 * More smarts about finding #include files
3052 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3053 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3054 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3055 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3056 the one that contains your sources.
3058 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3059 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3060 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3062 * Interesting infernals change
3064 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3065 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3066 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3067 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3069 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3071 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3072 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3073 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3075 See the ChangeLog for details.
3077 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3079 * New machines supported (host and target)
3081 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3083 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3085 * New malloc package
3087 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3088 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3089 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3090 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3091 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3092 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3096 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3097 'help info proc' for details.
3099 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3101 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3102 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3105 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3107 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3108 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3109 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3110 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3111 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3112 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3114 * Cross byte order fixes
3116 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3117 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3119 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3121 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3122 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3123 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3124 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3125 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3126 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3127 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3128 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3129 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3130 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3132 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3133 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3134 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3135 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3137 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3138 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3139 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3142 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3144 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3145 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3146 shared across multiple host platforms.
3148 * longjmp() handling
3150 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3151 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3152 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3153 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3157 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3158 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3163 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3164 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3165 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3167 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3169 * New machines supported (host and target)
3171 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3173 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3174 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3176 * New machines supported (target)
3178 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3182 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3183 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3184 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3186 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3187 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3188 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3189 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3190 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3193 * New features for SVR4
3195 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3196 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3197 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3199 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3200 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3201 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3203 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3204 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3206 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3208 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3209 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3210 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3211 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3212 same code linked statically.
3216 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3217 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3218 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3219 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3220 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3221 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3225 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3226 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3227 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3230 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3232 * New machines supported (host and target)
3234 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3235 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3236 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3238 * Almost SCO Unix support
3240 We had hoped to support:
3241 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3242 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3243 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3244 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3246 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3248 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3249 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3250 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3251 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3256 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3257 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3258 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3262 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3263 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3264 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3266 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3268 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3269 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3270 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3272 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3273 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3274 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3275 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3278 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3279 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3280 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3281 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3284 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3285 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3288 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3289 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3290 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3293 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3295 * Improved configuration
3297 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3298 Porting BFD is simpler.
3302 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3303 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3304 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3305 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3309 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3311 * New host supported (not target)
3313 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3316 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3318 * Multiple source language support
3320 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3321 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3322 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3323 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3324 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3325 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3329 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3330 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3331 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3332 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3334 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3335 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3336 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3338 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3339 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3343 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3344 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3345 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3346 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3349 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3351 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3352 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3353 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3354 examining core files.
3358 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3361 * New machines supported (host and target)
3363 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3364 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3365 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3367 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3369 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3371 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3373 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3374 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3375 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3377 * New remote interfaces
3383 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3387 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3389 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3390 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3391 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3392 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3393 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3394 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3395 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3396 stub on the target system.
3398 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3400 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3401 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3402 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3404 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3405 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3408 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3410 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3411 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3413 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3414 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3415 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3417 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3418 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3419 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3420 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3422 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3423 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3424 it is already running. Default is ON.
3426 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3427 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3428 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3429 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3432 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3433 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3434 or the value of the environment variable
3437 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3438 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3441 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3442 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3443 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3445 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3446 history expansion will be performed on
3447 command line input. The default is OFF.
3449 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3450 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3451 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3453 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3454 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3455 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3458 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3459 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3460 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3463 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3464 ``set width'' instead.
3466 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3467 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3468 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3469 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3471 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3474 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3477 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3480 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3483 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3485 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3486 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3487 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3491 * Support for Shared Libraries
3493 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3494 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3495 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3496 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3497 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3498 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3499 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3500 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3502 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3503 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3504 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3506 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3511 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3512 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3513 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3514 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3515 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3516 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3518 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3520 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3522 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3523 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3524 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3527 * C++ multiple inheritance
3529 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3532 * C++ exception handling
3534 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3535 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3536 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3539 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3540 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3541 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3543 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3544 current stack frame.
3547 * Minor command changes
3549 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3550 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3551 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3553 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3554 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3555 frames without printing.
3557 * New directory command
3559 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3560 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3561 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3562 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3563 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3565 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3567 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3570 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3571 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3572 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3573 where the program that you are debugging will run.