1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.5
8 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
10 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
11 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
16 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
17 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
18 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
19 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
23 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
24 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
26 * Removed remote packets
29 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
30 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
32 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
36 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
38 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
42 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
43 only if it doesn't already have a value.
45 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
47 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
49 restart <n> Return the program state to a
50 previously saved state.
52 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
54 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
56 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
57 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
59 info forks List forks of the user program that
60 are available to be debugged.
62 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
63 forks of the user program that are
64 available to be debugged.
66 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
67 that are available to be debugged (and
68 kill the forked process).
70 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
71 that are available to be debugged (and
72 allow the process to continue).
76 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
78 * Improved Windows host support
80 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
81 native console support, and remote communications using either
82 network sockets or serial ports.
84 * Improved Modula-2 language support
86 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
87 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
88 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
89 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
90 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
91 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
95 The ARM rdi-share module.
97 The Netware NLM debug server.
99 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
101 * New native configurations
103 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
104 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
108 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
110 * New command line options
112 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
113 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
114 the child (debugged) program exited with.
115 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
116 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
117 specified multiple times and in conjunction
118 with the --command (-x) option.
120 * Deprecated commands removed
122 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
126 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
127 othernames set arm disassembler
128 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
129 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
130 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
133 * New BSD user-level threads support
135 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
136 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
139 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
140 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
141 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
143 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
144 are not yet supported.
146 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
147 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
149 * REMOVED configurations and files
151 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
152 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
153 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
155 * New "set print array-indexes" command
157 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
158 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
161 * VAX floating point support
163 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
165 * User-defined command support
167 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
168 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
169 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
171 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
173 * New command line option
175 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
178 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
180 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
181 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
182 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
183 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
184 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
186 * Internationalization
188 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
189 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
190 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
194 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
195 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
196 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
198 * New native configurations
200 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
204 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
205 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
207 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
209 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
210 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
211 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
214 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
215 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
216 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
228 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
229 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
231 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
233 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
234 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
235 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
245 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
247 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
249 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
250 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
253 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
255 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
256 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
257 IRIX long double values).
261 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
262 command. This problem has been fixed.
264 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
266 * Fix for ``many threads''
268 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
269 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
272 ptrace: No such process.
273 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
275 This problem has been fixed.
277 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
279 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
282 * New ``start'' command.
284 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
286 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
288 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
289 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
290 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
292 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
293 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
294 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
295 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
296 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
297 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
298 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
299 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
300 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
302 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
304 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
305 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
306 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
307 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
308 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
310 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
311 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
312 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
314 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
316 * New native configurations
318 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
319 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
320 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
321 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
322 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
323 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
324 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
326 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
328 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
329 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
330 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
331 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
332 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
333 work, was also included.
335 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
336 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
346 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
347 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
349 * REMOVED configurations and files
351 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
352 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
353 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
354 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
355 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
356 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
357 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
358 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
359 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
361 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
363 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
365 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
367 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
368 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
369 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
370 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
373 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
375 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
376 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
377 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
378 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
379 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
380 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
383 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
385 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
387 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
388 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
389 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
391 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
393 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
394 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
396 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
398 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
399 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
400 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
402 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
404 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
405 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
407 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
409 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
410 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
411 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
413 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
415 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
416 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
417 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
419 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
421 * Removed --with-mmalloc
423 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
424 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
426 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
428 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
429 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
430 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
431 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
433 * Revised SPARC target
435 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
436 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
437 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
438 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
439 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
443 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
444 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
445 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
448 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
450 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
451 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
454 * C++ nested types and namespaces
456 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
457 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
458 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
459 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
460 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
461 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
462 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
463 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
464 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
466 * New native configurations
468 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
469 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
470 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
471 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
472 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
474 * New debugging protocols
476 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
478 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
480 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
481 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
482 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
484 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
486 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
487 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
488 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
491 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
492 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
493 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
494 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
495 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
496 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
497 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
498 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
499 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
501 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
503 * REMOVED configurations and files
505 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
506 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
507 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
508 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
509 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
510 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
511 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
512 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
513 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
514 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
515 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
516 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
517 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
518 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
519 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
520 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
521 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
523 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
527 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
530 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
532 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
533 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
534 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
537 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
538 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
543 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
544 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
545 remote protocol documentation for details.
547 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
549 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
550 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
551 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
554 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
556 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
557 per-thread variables.
559 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
561 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
562 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
564 * Separate debug info.
566 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
567 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
568 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
569 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
570 and optional debug files.
572 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
574 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
575 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
578 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
579 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
583 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
584 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
585 considered "useable".
587 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
589 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
590 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
593 * GDB supports logging output to a file
595 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
596 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
598 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
600 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
601 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
604 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
606 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
607 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
611 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
612 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
613 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
614 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
615 data, for more informative profiling results.
617 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
619 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
620 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
621 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
623 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
626 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
627 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
628 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
629 in a subsequent -var-update.
631 * New native configurations.
633 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
635 * Multi-arched targets.
637 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
638 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
640 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
642 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
643 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
644 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
647 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
648 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
649 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
650 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
651 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
652 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
653 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
654 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
655 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
656 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
657 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
658 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
660 * REMOVED configurations and files
663 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
664 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
665 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
666 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
667 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
668 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
670 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
671 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
672 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
673 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
674 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
675 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
677 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
679 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
680 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
681 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
682 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
683 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
685 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
687 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
689 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
690 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
691 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
692 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
693 shared libs like mad''.
695 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
697 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
698 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
699 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
700 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
702 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
704 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
705 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
708 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
709 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
711 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
712 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
714 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
715 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
716 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
717 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
719 * Multi-arched targets.
721 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
722 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
724 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
725 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
726 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
730 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
733 * New native configurations
735 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
736 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
737 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
738 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
740 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
742 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
743 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
744 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
747 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
748 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
749 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
750 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
751 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
752 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
753 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
754 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
755 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
756 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
758 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
759 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
763 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
765 * REMOVED configurations and files
767 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
768 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
769 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
770 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
771 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
773 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
775 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
777 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
778 commands. The default is 1024.
780 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
782 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
784 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
786 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
787 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
788 from a file into memory (restore).
790 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
792 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
793 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
794 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
796 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
804 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
805 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
806 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
808 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
809 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
810 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
812 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
813 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
814 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
816 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
817 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
818 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
820 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
822 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
824 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
825 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
826 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
827 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
828 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
829 (notably embedded) targets.
831 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
833 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
834 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
835 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
836 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
838 * New command line option
840 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
842 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
844 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
845 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
846 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
847 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
848 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
849 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
850 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
851 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
852 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
853 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
855 * Changes in ARM configurations.
857 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
858 configuration is fully multi-arch.
860 * New native configurations
862 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
863 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
864 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
865 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
869 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
871 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
873 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
874 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
875 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
878 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
879 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
880 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
881 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
882 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
884 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
886 * REMOVED configurations and files
888 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
890 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
891 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
892 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
893 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
894 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
895 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
896 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
897 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
898 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
899 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
900 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
902 * Changes to command line processing
904 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
905 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
907 * Changes to key bindings
909 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
911 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
913 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
915 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
918 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
920 Numerous documentation fixes.
922 Numerous testsuite fixes.
924 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
926 * New native configurations
928 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
929 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
930 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
931 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
933 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
937 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
939 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
941 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
943 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
944 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
945 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
946 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
947 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
949 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
950 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
951 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
952 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
953 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
954 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
955 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
956 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
958 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
959 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
961 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
962 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
963 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
966 * REMOVED configurations and files
968 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
969 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
971 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
975 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
977 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
978 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
983 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
985 * The MI enabled by default.
987 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
988 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
989 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
990 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
991 which is now deprecated.
993 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
995 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
996 main features are supported:
998 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1000 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1003 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1005 - a Pascal expression parser.
1007 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1009 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1011 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1013 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1014 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1016 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1018 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1020 * Changes in completion.
1022 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1023 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1024 users expect at the shell prompt.
1026 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1027 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1028 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1029 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1030 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1031 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1032 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1034 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1036 * New platform-independent commands:
1038 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1039 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1040 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1042 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1044 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1045 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1046 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1048 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1050 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1051 multi-threaded programs though.
1053 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1055 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1057 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1058 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1061 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1063 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1064 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1065 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1066 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1067 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1070 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1071 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1072 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1074 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1076 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1077 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1079 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1080 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1083 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1084 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1085 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1086 a given linear address.
1088 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1089 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1090 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1092 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1094 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1096 * Changes in documentation.
1098 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1099 Documentation License.
1101 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1104 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1106 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1109 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1110 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1111 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1113 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1115 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1116 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1117 contents of this file.
1121 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1123 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1125 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1127 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1128 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1129 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1130 greater level of detail.
1132 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1134 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1135 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1136 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1139 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1141 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1142 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1143 machines ``out of the box''.
1145 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1146 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1147 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1148 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1149 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1151 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1152 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1153 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1154 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1155 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1157 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1158 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1161 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1164 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1165 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1166 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1167 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1169 * New native configurations
1171 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1172 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1176 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1177 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1178 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1179 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1181 * OBSOLETE configurations
1183 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1184 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1186 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1189 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1190 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1191 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1192 be permanently REMOVED.
1194 * Gould support removed
1196 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1198 * New features for SVR4
1200 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1201 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1202 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1204 * Many C++ enhancements
1206 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1207 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1209 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1211 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1212 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1213 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1214 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1216 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1217 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1219 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1221 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1222 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1223 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1225 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1226 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1228 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1230 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1231 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1232 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1234 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1236 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1237 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1238 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1240 * ``apropos'' command added.
1242 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1243 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1244 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1248 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1249 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1250 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1251 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1252 enabled by configuring with:
1254 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1256 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1258 * New native configurations
1260 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1261 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1262 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1266 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1267 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1268 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1270 * OBSOLETE configurations
1272 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1274 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1275 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1276 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1277 be permanently REMOVED.
1281 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1282 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1283 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1284 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1285 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1286 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1287 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1292 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1294 * set extension-language
1296 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1297 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1298 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1299 set extension-language .c c++
1300 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1301 and their associated languages.
1303 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1305 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1306 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1307 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1311 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1312 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1314 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1315 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1317 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1318 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1319 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1320 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1321 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1322 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1323 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1324 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1326 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1327 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1328 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1329 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1333 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1334 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1335 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1336 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1337 for xdb and dbx commands.
1341 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1342 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1343 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1345 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1346 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1347 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1349 * Debugging across forks
1351 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1356 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1357 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1358 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1360 * GDB remote protocol additions
1362 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1363 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1364 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1365 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1367 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1368 full 64-bit address. The command
1370 set remoteaddresssize 32
1372 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1373 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1376 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1377 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1379 maint packet heythere
1381 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1382 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1385 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1386 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1387 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1389 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1391 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1392 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1393 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1395 * mask-address variable for Mips
1397 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1398 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1399 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1401 * Higher serial baud rates
1403 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1404 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1405 to achieve all of these rates.)
1409 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1410 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1413 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1415 * New native configurations
1417 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1418 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1419 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1420 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1421 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1422 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1423 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1427 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1428 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1429 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1430 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1431 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1432 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1433 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1434 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1435 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1436 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1437 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1439 * New debugging protocols
1441 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1442 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1443 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1444 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1445 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1446 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1450 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1451 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1456 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1457 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1459 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1461 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1462 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1463 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1465 * Live range splitting
1467 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1468 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1469 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1473 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1474 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1478 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1479 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1480 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1485 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1490 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1491 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1492 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1493 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1494 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1495 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1499 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1500 the symbol at the specified address.
1504 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1505 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1506 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1507 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1508 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1512 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1513 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1514 of most MIPS variants.
1518 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1519 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1520 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1524 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1525 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1526 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1527 the possible architectures.
1529 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1531 * New native configurations
1533 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1534 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1535 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1536 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1537 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1538 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1542 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1543 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1544 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1545 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1546 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1548 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1552 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1553 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1554 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1555 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1556 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1560 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1562 * Windows 95/NT native
1564 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1565 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1566 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1567 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1568 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1570 * dont-repeat command
1572 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1573 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1574 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1575 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1577 * Send break instead of ^C
1579 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1580 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1581 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1583 * Remote protocol timeout
1585 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1586 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1587 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1589 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1591 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1592 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1593 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1594 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1595 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1597 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1598 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1599 automatically on hpux10.
1601 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1603 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1605 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1607 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1608 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1609 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1610 every character. The default value is 1050.
1612 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1614 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1615 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1616 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1617 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1618 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1619 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1621 * Speedups for remote debugging
1623 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1624 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1625 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1627 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1629 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1630 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1632 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1634 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1636 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1637 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1639 * Remote targets use caching
1641 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1642 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1643 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1644 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1645 off' turns the the data cache off.
1647 * Remote targets may have threads
1649 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1650 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1651 gdb/remote.c for details.
1655 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1656 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1657 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1658 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1659 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1660 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1661 sequence is something like
1663 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1665 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1669 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1670 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1671 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1672 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1673 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1674 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1675 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1676 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1680 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1681 but does simplify configuration and building.
1685 GDB now supports hpux10.
1687 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1689 * New native configurations
1691 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1692 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1693 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1694 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1698 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1699 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1700 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1701 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1704 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1706 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1707 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1708 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1709 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1710 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1712 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1714 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1715 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1718 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1720 To execute the command use:
1723 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1724 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1725 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1727 * New `if' and `while' commands
1729 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1730 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1731 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1732 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1733 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1734 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1735 if the expression is zero.
1737 * Fortran source language mode
1739 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1740 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1741 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1742 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1745 * Better HPUX support
1747 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1748 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1749 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1750 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1751 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1757 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1758 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1764 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1765 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1768 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1769 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1771 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1773 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1774 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1775 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1776 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1777 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1778 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1780 * New DOS host serial code
1782 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1783 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1786 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1788 * New "complete" command
1790 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1791 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1793 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1795 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1796 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1798 * Breakpoint hit counts
1800 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1801 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1802 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1803 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1804 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1807 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1809 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1810 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1811 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1813 * Shared library breakpoints
1815 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1816 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1818 * Hardware watchpoints
1820 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1821 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1823 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1827 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1828 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1830 * Improved Irix 5 support
1832 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1834 * Improved HPPA support
1836 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1838 * New native configurations
1840 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1841 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1842 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1843 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1847 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1848 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1851 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1853 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1854 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1858 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1859 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1861 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1863 * Irix 5 is now supported
1867 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1868 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1869 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1870 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1871 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1874 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1876 * User visible changes:
1880 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1881 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1882 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1883 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1884 debugging info for the mips target).
1886 * DEC Alpha native support
1888 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1889 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1890 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1891 Alpha-specific notes.
1893 * Preliminary thread implementation
1895 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1897 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1899 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1900 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1903 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1905 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1906 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1907 call methods, ...etc.
1909 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1911 * User visible changes:
1913 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1914 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1915 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1916 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1918 Filename completion now works.
1920 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1921 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1922 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1924 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1925 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1926 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1927 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1928 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1932 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1933 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1936 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1940 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1941 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1942 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1946 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1947 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1948 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1949 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1950 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1954 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1955 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1956 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1958 * New targets supported
1960 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1961 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1962 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1963 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1964 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1966 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1967 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1968 GO32 memory extender.
1970 * New remote protocols
1972 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1974 * New source languages supported
1976 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1977 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1978 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1981 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1983 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1985 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1986 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1987 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1988 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1989 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1990 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1992 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1994 * Faster and better demangling
1996 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1997 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1998 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1999 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2000 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2001 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2004 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2005 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2006 compiler does not actually implement.
2008 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2010 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2011 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2012 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2013 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2014 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2015 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2018 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2019 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2021 * Improved configure script
2023 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2024 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2025 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2026 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2028 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2029 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2030 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2031 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2032 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2033 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2035 * Documentation improvements
2037 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2038 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2039 before submitting changes.
2041 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2042 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2043 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2044 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2045 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2047 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2048 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2049 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2050 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2051 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2052 around this problem.
2056 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2057 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2058 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2061 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2062 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2064 * New native hosts supported
2066 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2067 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2069 * New targets supported
2071 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2073 * New file formats supported
2075 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2076 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2080 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2082 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2083 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2085 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2086 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2087 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2089 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2090 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2092 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2093 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2094 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2097 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2098 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2099 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2100 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2101 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2103 * Internal improvements
2105 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2106 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2108 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2109 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2110 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2111 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2112 shared code that handles any of them.
2114 * New command line options
2116 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2120 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2121 General Public License.
2123 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2125 * Host/native/target split
2127 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2128 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2129 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2130 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2131 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2133 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2134 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2135 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2136 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2137 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2138 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2139 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2141 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2142 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2143 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2145 * New hosts supported
2147 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2148 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2149 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2151 * New targets supported
2153 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2154 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2156 * New native hosts supported
2158 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2159 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2160 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2162 * New file formats supported
2164 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2165 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2166 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2170 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2171 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2172 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2174 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2176 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2177 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2178 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2179 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2183 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2184 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2185 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2187 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2191 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2192 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2195 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2196 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2198 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2199 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2200 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2201 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2202 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2203 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2205 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2206 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2207 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2208 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2212 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2213 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2214 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2215 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2216 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2218 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2219 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2220 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2221 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2225 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2226 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2227 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2228 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2229 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2230 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2231 each instruction being stepped through.
2233 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2234 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2236 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2237 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2238 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2239 processor with a serial port.
2243 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2244 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2245 supported, and what files each one uses.
2249 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2250 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2251 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2252 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2254 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2255 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2256 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2257 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2261 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2262 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2263 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2264 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2265 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2266 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2268 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2271 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2273 * Better support for C++ function names
2275 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2276 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2277 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2278 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2279 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2281 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2282 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2283 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2284 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2285 for the list of formats.
2287 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2289 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2290 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2291 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2292 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2293 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2294 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2297 * New 'maintenance' command
2299 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2300 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2301 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2303 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2304 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2305 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2306 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2307 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2308 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2310 The following commands are new:
2312 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2313 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2314 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2316 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2318 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2319 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2320 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2321 read after argv processing.
2323 * New hosts supported
2325 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2327 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2329 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2330 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2331 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2332 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2333 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2336 * New targets supported
2338 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2340 * More smarts about finding #include files
2342 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2343 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2344 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2345 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2346 the one that contains your sources.
2348 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2349 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2350 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2352 * Interesting infernals change
2354 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2355 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2356 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2357 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2359 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2361 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2362 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2363 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2365 See the ChangeLog for details.
2367 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2369 * New machines supported (host and target)
2371 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2373 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2375 * New malloc package
2377 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2378 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2379 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2380 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2381 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2382 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2386 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2387 'help info proc' for details.
2389 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2391 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2392 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2395 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2397 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2398 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2399 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2400 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2401 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2402 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2404 * Cross byte order fixes
2406 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2407 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2409 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2411 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2412 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2413 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2414 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2415 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2416 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2417 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2418 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2419 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2420 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2422 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2423 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2424 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2425 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2427 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2428 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2429 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2432 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2434 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2435 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2436 shared across multiple host platforms.
2438 * longjmp() handling
2440 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2441 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2442 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2443 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2447 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2448 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2453 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2454 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2455 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2457 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2459 * New machines supported (host and target)
2461 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2463 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2464 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2466 * New machines supported (target)
2468 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2472 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2473 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2474 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2476 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2477 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2478 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2479 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2480 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2483 * New features for SVR4
2485 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2486 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2487 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2489 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2490 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2491 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2493 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2494 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2496 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2498 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2499 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2500 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2501 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2502 same code linked statically.
2506 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2507 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2508 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2509 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2510 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2511 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2515 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2516 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2517 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2520 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2522 * New machines supported (host and target)
2524 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2525 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2526 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2528 * Almost SCO Unix support
2530 We had hoped to support:
2531 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2532 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2533 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2534 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2536 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2538 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2539 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2540 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2541 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2546 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2547 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2548 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2552 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2553 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2554 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2556 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2558 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2559 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2560 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2562 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2563 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2564 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2565 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2568 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2569 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2570 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2571 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2574 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2575 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2578 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2579 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2580 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2583 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2585 * Improved configuration
2587 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2588 Porting BFD is simpler.
2592 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2593 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2594 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2595 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2599 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2601 * New host supported (not target)
2603 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2606 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2608 * Multiple source language support
2610 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2611 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2612 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2613 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2614 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2615 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2619 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2620 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2621 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2622 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2624 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2625 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2626 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2628 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2629 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2633 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2634 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2635 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2636 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2639 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2641 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2642 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2643 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2644 examining core files.
2648 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2651 * New machines supported (host and target)
2653 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2654 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2655 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2657 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2659 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2661 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2663 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2664 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2665 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2667 * New remote interfaces
2673 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2677 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2679 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2680 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2681 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2682 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2683 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2684 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2685 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2686 stub on the target system.
2688 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2690 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2691 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2692 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2694 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2695 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2698 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2700 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2701 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2703 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2704 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2705 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2707 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2708 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2709 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2710 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2712 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2713 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2714 it is already running. Default is ON.
2716 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2717 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2718 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2719 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2722 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2723 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2724 or the value of the environment variable
2727 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2728 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2731 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2732 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2733 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2735 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2736 history expansion will be performed on
2737 command line input. The default is OFF.
2739 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2740 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2741 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2743 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2744 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2745 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2748 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2749 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2750 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2753 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2754 ``set width'' instead.
2756 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2757 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2758 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2759 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2761 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2764 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2767 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2770 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2773 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2775 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2776 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2777 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2781 * Support for Shared Libraries
2783 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2784 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2785 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2786 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2787 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2788 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2789 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2790 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2792 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2793 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2794 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2796 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2801 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2802 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2803 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2804 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2805 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2806 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2808 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2810 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2812 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2813 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2814 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2817 * C++ multiple inheritance
2819 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2822 * C++ exception handling
2824 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2825 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2826 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2829 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2830 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2831 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2833 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2834 current stack frame.
2837 * Minor command changes
2839 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2840 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2841 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2843 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2844 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2845 frames without printing.
2847 * New directory command
2849 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2850 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2851 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2852 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2853 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2855 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2857 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2860 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2861 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2862 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2863 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / platform / upstream / binutils.git / blob