1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.1
6 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
8 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
9 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
10 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
11 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
12 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
13 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
19 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
23 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
24 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
25 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
26 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
27 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
28 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
30 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
31 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
34 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
36 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints).
37 The feature is currently supported by the i386-linux and
38 amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support in gdbserver"
39 section in the manual for more information.
41 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
43 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
44 it understands register description.
46 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
48 * X86 general purpose registers
50 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
51 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
52 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
53 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
54 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
56 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
57 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
58 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
59 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
60 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
61 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
63 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
64 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
65 in the specified file.
67 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
68 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
69 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
70 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
71 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
72 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
73 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
74 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
75 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
76 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
80 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
81 show target-file-system-kind
82 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
85 save breakpoints <filename>
86 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
87 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
88 definitions, use the `source' command.
90 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
95 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
96 tables, program spaces, and frame's code blocks. Additionally, GDB
97 Parameters can now be created from the API, and manipulated via
100 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
101 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
103 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
105 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
107 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
108 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
109 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
111 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
112 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
113 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
118 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
120 * D language support.
121 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
124 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
130 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
131 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
132 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
133 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
134 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
138 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
139 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
144 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
145 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
149 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
154 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
157 * Multi-program debugging.
159 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
160 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
161 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
162 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
163 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
164 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
165 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
166 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
168 * New tracing features
170 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
172 ** Trace state variables
174 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
175 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
176 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
177 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
178 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
179 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
180 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
181 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
182 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
183 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
187 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
188 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
189 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
190 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
191 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
192 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
193 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
194 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
195 the regular trace command.
197 ** Disconnected tracing
199 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
200 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
201 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
202 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
203 connection is lost unexpectedly.
207 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
208 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
209 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
210 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
211 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
212 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
215 ** Circular trace buffer
217 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
218 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
219 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
220 not be available for all target agents.
225 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
226 the arguments to be comma-separated.
229 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
230 which only declare a variable are not shown.
233 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
234 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
237 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
238 "set script-extension" (see below).
240 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
242 record save [<FILENAME>]
243 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
244 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
246 record restore <FILENAME>
247 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
248 earlier time, for replay debugging.
250 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
253 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
254 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
260 maint info program-spaces
261 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
263 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
264 show remote interrupt-sequence
265 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
266 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
267 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
268 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
269 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
271 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
272 show remote interrupt-on-connect
273 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
274 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
277 set remotebreak [on | off]
279 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
281 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
282 Create or modify a trace state variable.
285 List trace state variables and their values.
287 delete tvariable $NAME ...
288 Delete one or more trace state variables.
291 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
292 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
294 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
295 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
297 * New expression syntax
299 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
300 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
304 set follow-exec-mode new|same
305 show follow-exec-mode
306 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
307 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
308 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
310 set default-collect EXPR, ...
312 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
313 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
314 such as registers or a critical global variable.
316 set disconnected-tracing
317 show disconnected-tracing
318 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
319 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
322 set circular-trace-buffer
323 show circular-trace-buffer
324 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
325 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
326 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
327 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
329 set script-extension off|soft|strict
330 show script-extension
331 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
332 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
333 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
334 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
336 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
338 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
339 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
340 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
341 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
342 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
343 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
344 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
347 * Python API Improvements
349 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
350 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
351 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
353 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
354 `is_base_class' attribute.
356 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
358 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
359 evaluate an expression.
364 Define a trace state variable.
367 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
370 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
373 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
376 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
380 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
382 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
383 much more reliable. In particular:
384 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
385 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
386 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
387 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
388 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
389 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
390 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
391 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
392 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
393 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
394 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
395 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
396 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
397 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
398 non-threaded programs.
400 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
401 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
402 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
405 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
407 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
408 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
409 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
410 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
411 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
413 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
414 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
415 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
416 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
417 for tracepoint actions.
419 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
420 in hex as well as in symbolic form.
422 * Process record and replay
424 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
425 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
426 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
429 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
430 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
431 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
434 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
435 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
438 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
439 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
440 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
441 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
442 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
443 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
444 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
445 the installation instructions for more information.
447 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
448 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
449 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
450 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
452 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
453 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
455 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
456 now complete on file names.
458 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
459 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
460 For instance, consider:
462 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
463 # struct example variable;
466 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
467 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
469 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
470 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
472 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
473 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
476 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
477 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
478 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
480 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
481 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
482 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
483 and simulator targets may also provide them.
488 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
491 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
492 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
493 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
496 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
497 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
500 Obtains additional operating system information
504 Read or write additional signal information.
506 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
508 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
509 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
510 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
512 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
515 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
516 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
518 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
519 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
520 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
522 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
523 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
525 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
527 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
529 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
530 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
532 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
533 list of section offsets.
535 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
536 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
537 have also been fixed.
539 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
540 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
541 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
543 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
546 template<typename T> class C { };
549 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
551 ptype C<char const *>
553 ptype C<const char *>
556 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
558 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
559 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
561 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
562 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
563 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
565 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
566 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
568 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
571 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
572 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
574 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
575 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
580 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
581 available is determined at configure time.
583 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
585 * Ada tasking support
587 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
591 Print the list of Ada tasks.
593 Print detailed information about task number N.
595 Print the task number of the current task.
597 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
599 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
600 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
602 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
604 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
605 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
606 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
607 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
608 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
609 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
612 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
613 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
616 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
617 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
618 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
619 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
622 * Multi-architecture debugging.
624 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
625 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
626 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
627 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
628 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
630 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
631 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
632 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
633 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
634 --enable-targets configure option.
636 * Non-stop mode debugging.
638 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
639 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
640 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
641 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
642 section in the user manual for more information.
644 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
645 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
646 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
647 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
648 extensions on linux targets.
650 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
652 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
653 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
654 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
655 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
656 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
657 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
658 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
659 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
660 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
662 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
664 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
666 maint set python print-stack
667 maint show python print-stack
668 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
671 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
676 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
680 Show operating system information about processes.
683 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
686 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
689 Detach from inferior number NUM.
692 Kill inferior number NUM.
697 show spu stop-on-load
698 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
700 set spu auto-flush-cache
701 show spu auto-flush-cache
702 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
703 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
705 set sh calling-convention
706 show sh calling-convention
707 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
711 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
713 set disassemble-next-line
714 show disassemble-next-line
715 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
718 set remote noack-packet
719 show remote noack-packet
720 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
721 under "New remote packets."
723 set remote query-attached-packet
724 show remote query-attached-packet
725 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
727 set remote read-siginfo-object
728 show remote read-siginfo-object
729 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
732 set remote write-siginfo-object
733 show remote write-siginfo-object
734 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
737 set remote reverse-continue
738 show remote reverse-continue
739 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
741 set remote reverse-step
742 show remote reverse-step
743 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
745 set displaced-stepping
746 show displaced-stepping
747 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
748 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
749 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
753 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
755 maint set internal-error
756 maint show internal-error
757 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
759 maint set internal-warning
760 maint show internal-warning
761 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
766 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
768 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
769 show multiple-symbols
770 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
771 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
772 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
774 set breakpoint always-inserted
775 show breakpoint always-inserted
776 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
777 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
778 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
780 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
781 show arm fallback-mode
782 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
784 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
785 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
786 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
787 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
789 set disable-randomization
790 show disable-randomization
791 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
792 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
793 multiple debugging sessions.
797 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
802 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
803 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
804 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
805 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
807 set target-wide-charset
808 show target-wide-charset
809 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
810 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
812 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
814 set tcp connect-timeout
815 show tcp connect-timeout
816 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
817 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
818 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
820 set libthread-db-search-path
821 show libthread-db-search-path
822 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
825 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
826 show schedule-multiple
827 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
832 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
833 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
834 affecting correctness.
836 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
837 show interactive-mode
838 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
839 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
840 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
841 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
842 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
847 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
848 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
849 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
853 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
854 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
855 alias for the `fork' command.
858 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
859 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
860 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
863 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
864 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
865 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
869 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
870 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
871 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
874 * New native configurations
876 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
878 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
882 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
883 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
884 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
887 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
888 (mingw32ce) debugging.
894 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
896 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
898 * New native configurations
900 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
901 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
905 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
906 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
908 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
910 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
911 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
912 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
913 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
915 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
916 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
918 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
921 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
922 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
923 and in inlined functions.
925 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
926 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
927 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
929 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
931 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
932 registers on PowerPC targets.
934 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
935 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
937 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
938 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
940 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
941 extended-remote mode.
943 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
944 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
945 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
946 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
948 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
949 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
950 target architectures.
952 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
953 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
954 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
955 stored in two consecutive float registers.
957 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
960 * Improved support for debugging Ada
961 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
963 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
964 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
965 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
966 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
968 - Improved command completion in Ada
971 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
976 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
977 show print frame-arguments
978 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
979 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
984 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
991 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1000 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1003 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1007 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1009 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1011 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1012 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1013 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1015 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1016 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1017 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1019 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1020 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1023 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1024 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1026 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1027 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1029 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1031 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1032 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1033 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1035 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1036 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1038 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1039 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1042 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1043 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1044 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1046 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1049 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1050 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1051 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1053 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1055 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1057 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1058 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1059 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1061 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1062 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1064 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1065 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1066 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1067 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1068 Windows and SymbianOS).
1070 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1071 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1073 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1074 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1080 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1081 when debugging using remote targets.
1083 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1084 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1085 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1086 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1087 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1088 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1089 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1091 set breakpoint auto-hw
1092 show breakpoint auto-hw
1093 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1094 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1095 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1096 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1097 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1098 including "next" and "finish".
1101 catch exception unhandled
1102 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1105 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1109 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1110 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1111 an alias to "set sysroot".
1114 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1115 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1118 * New native configurations
1120 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1123 unset tdesc filename
1125 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1126 not query the target for its built-in description.
1130 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1131 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1132 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1134 * New remote packets
1137 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1138 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1140 qXfer:features:read:
1141 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1146 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1147 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1149 qXfer:libraries:read:
1150 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1151 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1152 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1153 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1157 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1165 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1166 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1167 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1168 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1170 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1173 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1174 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1183 * Other removed features
1190 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1197 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1202 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1203 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1208 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1209 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1211 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1213 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1214 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1215 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1216 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1218 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1220 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1221 in debugging information.
1225 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1226 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1228 set mips stack-arg-size
1229 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1231 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1233 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1238 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1240 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1241 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1242 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1244 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1245 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1248 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1249 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1251 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1252 stub provides the required support.
1254 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1255 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1260 unset substitute-path
1261 show substitute-path
1262 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1263 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1264 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1265 between compilation and debugging.
1269 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1270 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1271 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1275 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1277 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1278 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1280 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1282 * New remote packets
1285 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1286 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1287 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1288 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1292 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1293 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1295 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1296 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1297 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1302 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1304 * Removed remote packets
1307 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1308 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1310 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1314 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1316 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1320 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1321 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1323 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1325 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1327 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1328 previously saved state.
1330 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1332 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1334 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1335 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1337 info forks List forks of the user program that
1338 are available to be debugged.
1340 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1341 forks of the user program that are
1342 available to be debugged.
1344 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1345 that are available to be debugged (and
1346 kill the forked process).
1348 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1349 that are available to be debugged (and
1350 allow the process to continue).
1354 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1356 * Improved Windows host support
1358 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1359 native console support, and remote communications using either
1360 network sockets or serial ports.
1362 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1364 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1365 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1366 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1367 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1368 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1369 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1373 The ARM rdi-share module.
1375 The Netware NLM debug server.
1377 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1379 * New native configurations
1381 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1382 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1386 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1388 * New command line options
1390 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1391 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1392 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1393 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1394 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1395 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1396 with the --command (-x) option.
1398 * Deprecated commands removed
1400 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1404 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1405 othernames set arm disassembler
1406 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1407 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1408 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1411 * New BSD user-level threads support
1413 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1414 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1417 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1418 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1419 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1421 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1422 are not yet supported.
1424 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1425 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1427 * REMOVED configurations and files
1429 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1430 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1431 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1433 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1435 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1436 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1439 * VAX floating point support
1441 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1443 * User-defined command support
1445 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1446 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1447 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1449 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1451 * New command line option
1453 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1456 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1458 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1459 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1460 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1461 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1462 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1464 * Internationalization
1466 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1467 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1468 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1472 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1473 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1474 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1476 * New native configurations
1478 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1482 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1483 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1485 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1487 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1488 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1489 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1492 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1493 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1494 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1504 powerpc bdm protocol
1506 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1507 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1509 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1511 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1512 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1513 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1514 permanently REMOVED.
1523 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1525 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1527 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1528 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1531 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1533 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1534 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1535 IRIX long double values).
1539 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1540 command. This problem has been fixed.
1542 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1544 * Fix for ``many threads''
1546 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1547 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1550 ptrace: No such process.
1551 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1553 This problem has been fixed.
1555 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1557 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1560 * New ``start'' command.
1562 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1564 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1566 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1567 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1568 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1570 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1571 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1572 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1573 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1574 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1575 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1576 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1577 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1578 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1580 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1582 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1583 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1584 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1585 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1586 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1588 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1589 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1590 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1592 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1594 * New native configurations
1596 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1597 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1598 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1599 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1600 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1601 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1602 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1604 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1606 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1607 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1608 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1609 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1610 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1611 work, was also included.
1613 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1614 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1624 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1625 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1627 * REMOVED configurations and files
1629 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1630 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1631 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1632 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1633 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1634 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1635 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1636 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1637 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1638 sonymips mips-sony-*
1639 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1641 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1643 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1645 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1646 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1647 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1648 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1651 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1653 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1654 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1655 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1656 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1657 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1658 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1661 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1663 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1665 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1666 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1667 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1669 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1671 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1672 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1674 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1676 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1677 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1678 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1680 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1682 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1683 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1685 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1687 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1688 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1689 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1691 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1693 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1694 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1695 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1697 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1699 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1701 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1702 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1704 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1706 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1707 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1708 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1709 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1711 * Revised SPARC target
1713 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1714 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1715 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1716 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1717 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1721 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1722 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1723 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1726 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1728 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1729 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1732 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1734 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1735 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1736 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1737 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1738 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1739 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1740 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1741 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1742 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1744 * New native configurations
1746 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1747 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1748 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1749 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1750 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1752 * New debugging protocols
1754 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1756 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1758 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1759 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1760 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1762 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1764 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1765 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1766 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1767 permanently REMOVED.
1769 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1770 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1771 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1772 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1773 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1774 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1775 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1776 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1777 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1778 sonymips mips-sony-*
1779 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1781 * REMOVED configurations and files
1783 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1784 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1785 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1786 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1787 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1788 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1789 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1790 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1791 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1792 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1793 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1794 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1795 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1796 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1797 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1798 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1799 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1801 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1805 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1806 integrated into GDB.
1808 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1810 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1811 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1812 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1815 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1816 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1817 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1821 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1822 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1823 remote protocol documentation for details.
1825 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1827 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1828 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1829 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1832 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1834 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1835 per-thread variables.
1837 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1839 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1840 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1842 * Separate debug info.
1844 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1845 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1846 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1847 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1848 and optional debug files.
1850 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1852 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1853 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1856 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1857 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1861 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1862 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1863 considered "useable".
1865 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1867 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1868 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1871 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1873 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1874 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1876 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1878 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1879 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1882 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1884 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1885 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1889 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1890 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1891 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1892 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1893 data, for more informative profiling results.
1895 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1897 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1898 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1899 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1901 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1904 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1905 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1906 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1907 in a subsequent -var-update.
1909 * New native configurations.
1911 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1913 * Multi-arched targets.
1915 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1916 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1918 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1920 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1921 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1922 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1923 permanently REMOVED.
1925 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1926 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1927 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1928 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1929 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1930 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1931 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1932 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1933 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1934 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1935 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1936 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1938 * REMOVED configurations and files
1941 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1942 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1943 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1944 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1945 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1946 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1948 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1949 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1950 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1951 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1952 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1953 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1955 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1957 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1958 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1959 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1960 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1961 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1963 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1965 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1967 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1968 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1969 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1970 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1971 shared libs like mad''.
1973 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1975 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1976 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1977 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1978 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1980 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1982 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1983 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1986 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1987 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1989 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1990 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1992 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1993 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1994 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1995 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1997 * Multi-arched targets.
1999 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2000 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2002 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2003 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2004 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2008 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2011 * New native configurations
2013 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2014 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2015 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2016 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2018 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2020 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2021 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2022 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2023 permanently REMOVED.
2025 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2026 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2027 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2028 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2029 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2030 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2031 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2032 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2033 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2034 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2036 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2037 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2039 * OBSOLETE languages
2041 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2043 * REMOVED configurations and files
2045 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2046 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2047 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2048 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2049 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2051 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2053 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2055 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2056 commands. The default is 1024.
2058 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2060 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2062 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2064 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2065 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2066 from a file into memory (restore).
2068 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2070 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2071 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2072 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2074 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2082 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2083 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2084 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2086 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2087 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2088 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2090 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2091 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2092 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2094 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2095 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2096 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2098 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2100 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2102 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2103 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2104 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2105 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2106 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2107 (notably embedded) targets.
2109 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2111 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2112 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2113 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2114 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2116 * New command line option
2118 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2120 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2122 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2123 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2124 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2125 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2126 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2127 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2128 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2129 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2130 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2131 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2133 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2135 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2136 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2138 * New native configurations
2140 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2141 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2142 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2143 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2147 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2149 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2151 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2152 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2153 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2154 permanently REMOVED.
2156 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2157 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2158 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2159 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2160 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2162 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2164 * REMOVED configurations and files
2166 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2168 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2169 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2170 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2171 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2172 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2173 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2174 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2175 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2176 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2177 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2178 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2180 * Changes to command line processing
2182 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2183 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2185 * Changes to key bindings
2187 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2189 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2191 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2193 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2196 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2198 Numerous documentation fixes.
2200 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2202 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2204 * New native configurations
2206 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2207 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2208 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2209 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2210 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2211 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2215 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2217 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2219 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2221 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2222 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2223 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2224 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2225 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2227 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2228 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2229 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2230 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2231 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2232 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2233 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2234 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2236 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2237 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2239 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2240 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2241 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2242 permanently REMOVED.
2244 * REMOVED configurations and files
2246 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2247 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2249 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2253 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2255 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2256 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2261 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2263 * The MI enabled by default.
2265 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2266 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2267 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2268 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2269 which is now deprecated.
2271 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2273 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2274 main features are supported:
2276 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2278 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2281 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2283 - a Pascal expression parser.
2285 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2287 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2289 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2291 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2292 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2294 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2296 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2298 * Changes in completion.
2300 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2301 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2302 users expect at the shell prompt.
2304 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2305 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2306 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2307 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2308 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2309 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2310 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2312 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2314 * New platform-independent commands:
2316 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2317 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2318 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2320 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2322 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2323 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2324 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2326 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2328 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2329 multi-threaded programs though.
2331 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2333 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2335 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2336 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2339 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2341 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2342 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2343 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2344 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2345 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2348 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2349 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2350 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2352 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2354 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2355 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2357 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2358 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2361 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2362 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2363 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2364 a given linear address.
2366 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2367 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2368 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2370 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2372 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2374 * Changes in documentation.
2376 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2377 Documentation License.
2379 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2382 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2384 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2387 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2388 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2389 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2391 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2393 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2394 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2395 contents of this file.
2399 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2401 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2403 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2405 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2406 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2407 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2408 greater level of detail.
2410 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2412 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2413 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2414 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2417 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2419 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2420 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2421 machines ``out of the box''.
2423 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2424 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2425 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2426 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2427 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2429 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2430 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2431 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2432 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2433 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2435 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2436 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2439 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2442 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2443 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2444 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2445 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2447 * New native configurations
2449 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2450 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2454 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2455 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2456 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2457 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2459 * OBSOLETE configurations
2461 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2462 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2464 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2467 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2468 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2469 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2470 be permanently REMOVED.
2472 * Gould support removed
2474 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2476 * New features for SVR4
2478 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2479 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2480 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2482 * Many C++ enhancements
2484 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2485 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2487 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2489 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2490 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2491 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2492 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2494 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2495 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2497 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2499 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2500 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2501 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2503 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2504 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2506 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2508 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2509 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2510 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2512 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2514 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2515 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2516 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2518 * ``apropos'' command added.
2520 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2521 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2522 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2526 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2527 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2528 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2529 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2530 enabled by configuring with:
2532 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2534 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2536 * New native configurations
2538 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2539 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2540 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2544 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2545 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2546 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2548 * OBSOLETE configurations
2550 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2552 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2553 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2554 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2555 be permanently REMOVED.
2559 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2560 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2561 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2562 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2563 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2564 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2565 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2570 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2572 * set extension-language
2574 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2575 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2576 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2577 set extension-language .c c++
2578 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2579 and their associated languages.
2581 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2583 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2584 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2585 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2589 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2590 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2592 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2593 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2595 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2596 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2597 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2598 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2599 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2600 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2601 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2602 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2604 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2605 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2606 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2607 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2611 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2612 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2613 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2614 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2615 for xdb and dbx commands.
2619 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2620 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2621 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2623 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2624 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2625 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2627 * Debugging across forks
2629 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2634 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2635 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2636 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2638 * GDB remote protocol additions
2640 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2641 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2642 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2643 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2645 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2646 full 64-bit address. The command
2648 set remoteaddresssize 32
2650 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2651 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2654 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2655 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2657 maint packet heythere
2659 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2660 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2663 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2664 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2665 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2667 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2669 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2670 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2671 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2673 * mask-address variable for Mips
2675 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2676 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2677 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2679 * Higher serial baud rates
2681 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2682 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2683 to achieve all of these rates.)
2687 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2688 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2691 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2693 * New native configurations
2695 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2696 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2697 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2698 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2699 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2700 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2701 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2705 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2706 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2707 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2708 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2709 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2710 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2711 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2712 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2713 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2714 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2715 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2717 * New debugging protocols
2719 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2720 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2721 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2722 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2723 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2724 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2728 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2729 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2734 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2735 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2737 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2739 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2740 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2741 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2743 * Live range splitting
2745 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2746 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2747 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2751 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2752 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2756 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2757 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2758 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2763 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2768 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2769 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2770 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2771 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2772 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2773 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2777 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2778 the symbol at the specified address.
2782 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2783 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2784 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2785 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2786 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2790 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2791 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2792 of most MIPS variants.
2796 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2797 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2798 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2802 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2803 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2804 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2805 the possible architectures.
2807 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2809 * New native configurations
2811 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2812 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2813 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2814 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2815 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2816 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2820 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2821 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2822 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2823 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2824 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2826 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2830 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2831 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2832 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2833 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2834 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2838 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2840 * Windows 95/NT native
2842 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2843 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2844 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2845 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2846 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2848 * dont-repeat command
2850 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2851 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2852 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2853 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2855 * Send break instead of ^C
2857 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2858 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2859 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2861 * Remote protocol timeout
2863 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2864 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2865 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2867 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2869 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2870 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2871 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2872 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2873 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2875 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2876 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2877 automatically on hpux10.
2879 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2881 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2883 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2885 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2886 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2887 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2888 every character. The default value is 1050.
2890 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2892 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2893 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2894 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2895 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2896 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2897 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2899 * Speedups for remote debugging
2901 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2902 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2903 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2905 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2907 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2908 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2910 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2912 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2914 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2915 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2917 * Remote targets use caching
2919 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2920 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2921 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2922 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2923 off' turns the the data cache off.
2925 * Remote targets may have threads
2927 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2928 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2929 gdb/remote.c for details.
2933 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2934 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2935 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2936 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2937 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2938 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2939 sequence is something like
2941 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2943 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2947 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2948 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2949 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2950 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2951 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2952 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2953 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2954 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2958 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2959 but does simplify configuration and building.
2963 GDB now supports hpux10.
2965 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2967 * New native configurations
2969 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2970 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2971 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2972 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2976 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2977 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2978 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2979 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2982 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2984 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2985 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2986 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2987 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2988 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2990 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2992 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2993 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2996 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2998 To execute the command use:
3001 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3002 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3003 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3005 * New `if' and `while' commands
3007 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3008 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3009 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3010 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3011 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3012 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3013 if the expression is zero.
3015 * Fortran source language mode
3017 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3018 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3019 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3020 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3023 * Better HPUX support
3025 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3026 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3027 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3028 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3029 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3035 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3036 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3042 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3043 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3046 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3047 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3049 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3051 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3052 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3053 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3054 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3055 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3056 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3058 * New DOS host serial code
3060 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3061 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3064 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3066 * New "complete" command
3068 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3069 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3071 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3073 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3074 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3076 * Breakpoint hit counts
3078 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3079 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3080 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3081 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3082 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3085 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3087 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3088 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3089 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3091 * Shared library breakpoints
3093 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3094 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3096 * Hardware watchpoints
3098 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3099 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3101 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3105 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3106 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3108 * Improved Irix 5 support
3110 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3112 * Improved HPPA support
3114 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3116 * New native configurations
3118 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3119 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3120 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3121 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3125 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3126 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3129 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3131 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3132 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3136 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3137 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3139 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3141 * Irix 5 is now supported
3145 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3146 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3147 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3148 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3149 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3152 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3154 * User visible changes:
3158 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3159 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3160 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3161 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3162 debugging info for the mips target).
3164 * DEC Alpha native support
3166 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3167 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3168 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3169 Alpha-specific notes.
3171 * Preliminary thread implementation
3173 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3175 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3177 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3178 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3181 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3183 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3184 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3185 call methods, ...etc.
3187 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3189 * User visible changes:
3191 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3192 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3193 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3194 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3196 Filename completion now works.
3198 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3199 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3200 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3202 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3203 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3204 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3205 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3206 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3210 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3211 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3214 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3218 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3219 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3220 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3224 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3225 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3226 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3227 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3228 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3232 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3233 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3234 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3236 * New targets supported
3238 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3239 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3240 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3241 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3242 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3244 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3245 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3246 GO32 memory extender.
3248 * New remote protocols
3250 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3252 * New source languages supported
3254 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3255 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3256 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3259 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3261 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3263 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3264 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3265 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3266 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3267 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3268 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3270 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3272 * Faster and better demangling
3274 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3275 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3276 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3277 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3278 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3279 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3282 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3283 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3284 compiler does not actually implement.
3286 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3288 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3289 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3290 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3291 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3292 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3293 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3296 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3297 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3299 * Improved configure script
3301 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3302 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3303 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3304 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3306 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3307 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3308 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3309 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3310 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3311 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3313 * Documentation improvements
3315 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3316 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3317 before submitting changes.
3319 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3320 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3321 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3322 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3323 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3325 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3326 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3327 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3328 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3329 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3330 around this problem.
3334 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3335 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3336 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3339 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3340 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3342 * New native hosts supported
3344 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3345 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3347 * New targets supported
3349 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3351 * New file formats supported
3353 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3354 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3358 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3360 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3361 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3363 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3364 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3365 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3367 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3368 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3370 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3371 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3372 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3375 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3376 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3377 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3378 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3379 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3381 * Internal improvements
3383 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3384 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3386 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3387 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3388 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3389 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3390 shared code that handles any of them.
3392 * New command line options
3394 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3398 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3399 General Public License.
3401 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3403 * Host/native/target split
3405 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3406 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3407 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3408 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3409 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3411 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3412 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3413 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3414 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3415 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3416 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3417 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3419 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3420 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3421 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3423 * New hosts supported
3425 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3426 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3427 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3429 * New targets supported
3431 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3432 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3434 * New native hosts supported
3436 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3437 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3438 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3440 * New file formats supported
3442 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3443 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3444 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3448 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3449 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3450 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3452 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3454 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3455 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3456 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3457 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3461 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3462 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3463 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3465 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3469 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3470 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3473 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3474 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3476 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3477 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3478 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3479 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3480 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3481 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3483 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3484 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3485 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3486 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3490 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3491 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3492 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3493 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3494 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3496 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3497 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3498 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3499 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3503 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3504 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3505 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3506 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3507 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3508 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3509 each instruction being stepped through.
3511 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3512 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3514 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3515 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3516 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3517 processor with a serial port.
3521 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3522 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3523 supported, and what files each one uses.
3527 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3528 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3529 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3530 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3532 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3533 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3534 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3535 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3539 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3540 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3541 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3542 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3543 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3544 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3546 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3549 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3551 * Better support for C++ function names
3553 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3554 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3555 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3556 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3557 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3559 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3560 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3561 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3562 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3563 for the list of formats.
3565 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3567 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3568 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3569 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3570 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3571 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3572 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3575 * New 'maintenance' command
3577 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3578 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3579 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3581 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3582 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3583 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3584 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3585 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3586 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3588 The following commands are new:
3590 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3591 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3592 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3594 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3596 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3597 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3598 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3599 read after argv processing.
3601 * New hosts supported
3603 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3605 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3607 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3608 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3609 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3610 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3611 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3614 * New targets supported
3616 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3618 * More smarts about finding #include files
3620 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3621 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3622 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3623 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3624 the one that contains your sources.
3626 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3627 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3628 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3630 * Interesting infernals change
3632 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3633 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3634 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3635 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3637 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3639 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3640 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3641 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3643 See the ChangeLog for details.
3645 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3647 * New machines supported (host and target)
3649 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3651 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3653 * New malloc package
3655 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3656 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3657 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3658 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3659 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3660 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3664 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3665 'help info proc' for details.
3667 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3669 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3670 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3673 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3675 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3676 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3677 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3678 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3679 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3680 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3682 * Cross byte order fixes
3684 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3685 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3687 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3689 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3690 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3691 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3692 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3693 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3694 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3695 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3696 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3697 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3698 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3700 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3701 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3702 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3703 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3705 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3706 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3707 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3710 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3712 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3713 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3714 shared across multiple host platforms.
3716 * longjmp() handling
3718 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3719 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3720 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3721 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3725 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3726 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3731 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3732 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3733 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3735 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3737 * New machines supported (host and target)
3739 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3741 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3742 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3744 * New machines supported (target)
3746 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3750 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3751 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3752 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3754 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3755 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3756 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3757 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3758 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3761 * New features for SVR4
3763 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3764 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3765 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3767 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3768 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3769 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3771 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3772 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3774 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3776 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3777 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3778 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3779 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3780 same code linked statically.
3784 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3785 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3786 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3787 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3788 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3789 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3793 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3794 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3795 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3798 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3800 * New machines supported (host and target)
3802 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3803 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3804 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3806 * Almost SCO Unix support
3808 We had hoped to support:
3809 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3810 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3811 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3812 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3814 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3816 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3817 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3818 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3819 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3824 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3825 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3826 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3830 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3831 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3832 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3834 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3836 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3837 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3838 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3840 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3841 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3842 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3843 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3846 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3847 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3848 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3849 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3852 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3853 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3856 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3857 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3858 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3861 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3863 * Improved configuration
3865 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3866 Porting BFD is simpler.
3870 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3871 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3872 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3873 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3877 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3879 * New host supported (not target)
3881 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3884 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3886 * Multiple source language support
3888 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3889 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3890 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3891 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3892 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3893 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3897 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3898 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3899 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3900 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3902 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3903 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3904 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3906 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3907 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3911 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3912 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3913 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3914 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3917 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3919 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3920 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3921 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3922 examining core files.
3926 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3929 * New machines supported (host and target)
3931 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3932 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3933 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3935 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3937 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3939 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3941 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3942 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3943 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3945 * New remote interfaces
3951 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3955 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3957 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3958 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3959 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3960 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3961 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3962 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3963 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3964 stub on the target system.
3966 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3968 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3969 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3970 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3972 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3973 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3976 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3978 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3979 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3981 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3982 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3983 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3985 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3986 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3987 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3988 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3990 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3991 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3992 it is already running. Default is ON.
3994 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3995 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3996 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3997 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4000 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4001 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4002 or the value of the environment variable
4005 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4006 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4009 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4010 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4011 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4013 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4014 history expansion will be performed on
4015 command line input. The default is OFF.
4017 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4018 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4019 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4021 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4022 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4023 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4026 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4027 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4028 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4031 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4032 ``set width'' instead.
4034 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4035 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4036 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4037 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4039 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4042 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4045 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4048 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4051 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4053 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4054 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4055 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4059 * Support for Shared Libraries
4061 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4062 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4063 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4064 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4065 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4066 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4067 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4068 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4070 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4071 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4072 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4074 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4079 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4080 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4081 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4082 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4083 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4084 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4086 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4088 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4090 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4091 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4092 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4095 * C++ multiple inheritance
4097 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4100 * C++ exception handling
4102 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4103 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4104 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4107 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4108 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4109 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4111 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4112 current stack frame.
4115 * Minor command changes
4117 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4118 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4119 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4121 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4122 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4123 frames without printing.
4125 * New directory command
4127 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4128 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4129 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4130 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4131 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4133 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4135 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4138 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4139 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4140 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4141 where the program that you are debugging will run.