1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.1
6 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
8 - GDBserver now support tracepoints. The feature is currently
9 supported by the i386-linux and amd64-linux builds.
11 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
12 it understands register description.
14 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
16 * X86 general purpose registers
18 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
19 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
20 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
21 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
22 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
24 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
25 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
26 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
27 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
28 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
29 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
33 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
34 tables, and frame's code blocks.
36 ** New methods gdb.target_charset and gdb.target_wide_charset.
38 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
39 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
40 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
45 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
47 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
53 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
54 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
55 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
56 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
57 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
61 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
62 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
67 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
68 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
72 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
77 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
80 * Multi-program debugging.
82 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
83 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
84 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
85 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
86 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
87 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
88 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
89 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
91 * New tracing features
93 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
95 ** Trace state variables
97 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
98 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
99 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
100 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
101 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
102 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
103 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
104 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
105 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
106 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
110 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
111 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
112 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
113 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
114 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
115 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
116 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
117 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
118 the regular trace command.
120 ** Disconnected tracing
122 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
123 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
124 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
125 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
126 connection is lost unexpectedly.
130 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
131 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
132 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
133 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
134 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
135 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
138 ** Circular trace buffer
140 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
141 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
142 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
143 not be available for all target agents.
148 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
149 the arguments to be comma-separated.
152 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
153 which only declare a variable are not shown.
156 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
157 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
160 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
161 "set script-extension" (see below).
163 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
165 record save [<FILENAME>]
166 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
167 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
169 record restore <FILENAME>
170 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
171 earlier time, for replay debugging.
173 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
176 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
177 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
183 maint info program-spaces
184 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
186 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
187 show remote interrupt-sequence
188 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
189 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
190 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
191 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
192 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
194 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
195 show remote interrupt-on-connect
196 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
197 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
200 set remotebreak [on | off]
202 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
204 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
205 Create or modify a trace state variable.
208 List trace state variables and their values.
210 delete tvariable $NAME ...
211 Delete one or more trace state variables.
214 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
215 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
217 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
218 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
220 * New expression syntax
222 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
223 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
227 set follow-exec-mode new|same
228 show follow-exec-mode
229 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
230 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
231 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
233 set default-collect EXPR, ...
235 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
236 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
237 such as registers or a critical global variable.
239 set disconnected-tracing
240 show disconnected-tracing
241 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
242 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
245 set circular-trace-buffer
246 show circular-trace-buffer
247 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
248 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
249 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
250 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
252 set script-extension off|soft|strict
253 show script-extension
254 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
255 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
256 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
257 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
259 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
261 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
262 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
263 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
264 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
265 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
266 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
267 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
270 * Python API Improvements
272 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
273 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
274 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
276 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
277 `is_base_class' attribute.
279 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
281 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
282 evaluate an expression.
287 Define a trace state variable.
290 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
293 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
296 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
299 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
303 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
305 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
306 much more reliable. In particular:
307 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
308 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
309 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
310 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
311 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
312 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
313 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
314 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
315 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
316 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
317 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
318 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
319 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
320 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
321 non-threaded programs.
323 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
324 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
325 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
328 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
330 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
331 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
332 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
333 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
334 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
336 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
337 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
338 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
339 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
340 for tracepoint actions.
342 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
343 in hex as well as in symbolic form.
345 * Process record and replay
347 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
348 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
349 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
352 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
353 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
354 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
357 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
358 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
361 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
362 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
363 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
364 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
365 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
366 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
367 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
368 the installation instructions for more information.
370 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
371 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
372 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
373 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
375 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
376 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
378 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
379 now complete on file names.
381 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
382 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
383 For instance, consider:
385 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
386 # struct example variable;
389 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
390 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
392 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
393 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
395 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
396 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
399 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
400 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
401 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
403 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
404 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
405 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
406 and simulator targets may also provide them.
411 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
414 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
415 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
416 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
419 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
420 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
423 Obtains additional operating system information
427 Read or write additional signal information.
429 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
431 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
432 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
433 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
435 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
438 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
439 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
441 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
442 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
443 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
445 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
446 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
448 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
450 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
452 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
453 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
455 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
456 list of section offsets.
458 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
459 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
460 have also been fixed.
462 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
463 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
464 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
466 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
469 template<typename T> class C { };
472 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
474 ptype C<char const *>
476 ptype C<const char *>
479 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
481 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
482 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
484 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
485 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
486 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
488 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
489 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
491 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
494 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
495 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
497 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
498 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
503 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
504 available is determined at configure time.
506 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
508 * Ada tasking support
510 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
514 Print the list of Ada tasks.
516 Print detailed information about task number N.
518 Print the task number of the current task.
520 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
522 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
523 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
525 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
527 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
528 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
529 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
530 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
531 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
532 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
535 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
536 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
539 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
540 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
541 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
542 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
545 * Multi-architecture debugging.
547 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
548 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
549 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
550 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
551 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
553 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
554 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
555 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
556 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
557 --enable-targets configure option.
559 * Non-stop mode debugging.
561 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
562 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
563 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
564 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
565 section in the user manual for more information.
567 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
568 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
569 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
570 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
571 extensions on linux targets.
573 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
575 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
576 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
577 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
578 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
579 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
580 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
581 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
582 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
583 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
585 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
587 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
589 maint set python print-stack
590 maint show python print-stack
591 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
594 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
599 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
603 Show operating system information about processes.
606 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
609 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
612 Detach from inferior number NUM.
615 Kill inferior number NUM.
620 show spu stop-on-load
621 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
623 set spu auto-flush-cache
624 show spu auto-flush-cache
625 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
626 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
628 set sh calling-convention
629 show sh calling-convention
630 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
634 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
636 set disassemble-next-line
637 show disassemble-next-line
638 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
641 set remote noack-packet
642 show remote noack-packet
643 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
644 under "New remote packets."
646 set remote query-attached-packet
647 show remote query-attached-packet
648 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
650 set remote read-siginfo-object
651 show remote read-siginfo-object
652 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
655 set remote write-siginfo-object
656 show remote write-siginfo-object
657 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
660 set remote reverse-continue
661 show remote reverse-continue
662 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
664 set remote reverse-step
665 show remote reverse-step
666 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
668 set displaced-stepping
669 show displaced-stepping
670 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
671 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
672 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
676 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
678 maint set internal-error
679 maint show internal-error
680 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
682 maint set internal-warning
683 maint show internal-warning
684 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
689 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
691 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
692 show multiple-symbols
693 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
694 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
695 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
697 set breakpoint always-inserted
698 show breakpoint always-inserted
699 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
700 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
701 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
703 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
704 show arm fallback-mode
705 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
707 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
708 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
709 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
710 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
712 set disable-randomization
713 show disable-randomization
714 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
715 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
716 multiple debugging sessions.
720 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
725 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
726 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
727 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
728 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
730 set target-wide-charset
731 show target-wide-charset
732 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
733 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
735 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
737 set tcp connect-timeout
738 show tcp connect-timeout
739 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
740 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
741 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
743 set libthread-db-search-path
744 show libthread-db-search-path
745 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
748 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
749 show schedule-multiple
750 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
755 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
756 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
757 affecting correctness.
759 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
760 show interactive-mode
761 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
762 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
763 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
764 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
765 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
770 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
771 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
772 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
776 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
777 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
778 alias for the `fork' command.
781 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
782 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
783 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
786 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
787 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
788 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
792 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
793 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
794 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
797 * New native configurations
799 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
801 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
805 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
806 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
807 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
810 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
811 (mingw32ce) debugging.
817 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
819 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
821 * New native configurations
823 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
824 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
828 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
829 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
831 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
833 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
834 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
835 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
836 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
838 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
839 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
841 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
844 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
845 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
846 and in inlined functions.
848 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
849 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
850 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
852 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
854 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
855 registers on PowerPC targets.
857 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
858 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
860 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
861 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
863 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
864 extended-remote mode.
866 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
867 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
868 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
869 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
871 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
872 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
873 target architectures.
875 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
876 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
877 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
878 stored in two consecutive float registers.
880 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
883 * Improved support for debugging Ada
884 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
886 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
887 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
888 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
889 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
891 - Improved command completion in Ada
894 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
899 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
900 show print frame-arguments
901 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
902 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
907 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
914 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
923 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
926 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
930 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
932 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
934 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
935 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
936 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
938 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
939 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
940 -Bsymbolic linker option.
942 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
943 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
946 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
947 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
949 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
950 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
952 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
954 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
955 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
956 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
958 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
959 automatically displayed as character or string data.
961 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
962 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
965 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
966 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
967 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
969 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
972 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
973 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
974 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
976 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
978 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
980 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
981 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
982 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
984 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
985 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
987 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
988 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
989 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
990 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
991 Windows and SymbianOS).
993 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
994 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
996 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
997 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1003 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1004 when debugging using remote targets.
1006 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1007 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1008 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1009 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1010 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1011 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1012 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1014 set breakpoint auto-hw
1015 show breakpoint auto-hw
1016 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1017 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1018 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1019 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1020 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1021 including "next" and "finish".
1024 catch exception unhandled
1025 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1028 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1032 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1033 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1034 an alias to "set sysroot".
1037 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1038 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1041 * New native configurations
1043 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1046 unset tdesc filename
1048 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1049 not query the target for its built-in description.
1053 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1054 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1055 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1057 * New remote packets
1060 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1061 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1063 qXfer:features:read:
1064 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1069 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1070 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1072 qXfer:libraries:read:
1073 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1074 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1075 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1076 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1080 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1088 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1089 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1090 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1091 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1093 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1096 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1097 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1106 * Other removed features
1113 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1120 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1125 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1126 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1131 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1132 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1134 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1136 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1137 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1138 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1139 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1141 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1143 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1144 in debugging information.
1148 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1149 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1151 set mips stack-arg-size
1152 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1154 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1156 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1161 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1163 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1164 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1165 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1167 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1168 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1171 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1172 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1174 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1175 stub provides the required support.
1177 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1178 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1183 unset substitute-path
1184 show substitute-path
1185 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1186 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1187 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1188 between compilation and debugging.
1192 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1193 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1194 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1198 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1200 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1201 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1203 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1205 * New remote packets
1208 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1209 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1210 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1211 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1215 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1216 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1218 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1219 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1220 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1225 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1227 * Removed remote packets
1230 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1231 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1233 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1237 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1239 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1243 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1244 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1246 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1248 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1250 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1251 previously saved state.
1253 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1255 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1257 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1258 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1260 info forks List forks of the user program that
1261 are available to be debugged.
1263 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1264 forks of the user program that are
1265 available to be debugged.
1267 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1268 that are available to be debugged (and
1269 kill the forked process).
1271 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1272 that are available to be debugged (and
1273 allow the process to continue).
1277 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1279 * Improved Windows host support
1281 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1282 native console support, and remote communications using either
1283 network sockets or serial ports.
1285 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1287 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1288 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1289 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1290 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1291 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1292 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1296 The ARM rdi-share module.
1298 The Netware NLM debug server.
1300 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1302 * New native configurations
1304 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1305 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1309 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1311 * New command line options
1313 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1314 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1315 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1316 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1317 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1318 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1319 with the --command (-x) option.
1321 * Deprecated commands removed
1323 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1327 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1328 othernames set arm disassembler
1329 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1330 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1331 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1334 * New BSD user-level threads support
1336 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1337 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1340 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1341 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1342 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1344 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1345 are not yet supported.
1347 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1348 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1350 * REMOVED configurations and files
1352 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1353 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1354 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1356 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1358 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1359 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1362 * VAX floating point support
1364 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1366 * User-defined command support
1368 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1369 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1370 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1372 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1374 * New command line option
1376 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1379 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1381 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1382 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1383 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1384 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1385 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1387 * Internationalization
1389 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1390 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1391 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1395 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1396 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1397 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1399 * New native configurations
1401 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1405 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1406 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1408 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1410 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1411 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1412 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1415 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1416 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1417 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1427 powerpc bdm protocol
1429 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1430 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1432 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1434 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1435 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1436 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1437 permanently REMOVED.
1446 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1448 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1450 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1451 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1454 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1456 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1457 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1458 IRIX long double values).
1462 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1463 command. This problem has been fixed.
1465 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1467 * Fix for ``many threads''
1469 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1470 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1473 ptrace: No such process.
1474 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1476 This problem has been fixed.
1478 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1480 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1483 * New ``start'' command.
1485 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1487 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1489 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1490 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1491 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1493 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1494 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1495 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1496 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1497 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1498 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1499 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1500 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1501 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1503 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1505 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1506 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1507 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1508 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1509 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1511 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1512 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1513 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1515 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1517 * New native configurations
1519 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1520 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1521 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1522 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1523 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1524 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1525 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1527 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1529 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1530 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1531 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1532 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1533 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1534 work, was also included.
1536 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1537 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1547 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1548 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1550 * REMOVED configurations and files
1552 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1553 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1554 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1555 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1556 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1557 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1558 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1559 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1560 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1561 sonymips mips-sony-*
1562 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1564 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1566 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1568 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1569 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1570 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1571 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1574 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1576 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1577 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1578 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1579 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1580 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1581 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1584 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1586 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1588 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1589 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1590 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1592 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1594 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1595 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1597 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1599 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1600 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1601 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1603 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1605 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1606 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1608 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1610 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1611 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1612 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1614 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1616 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1617 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1618 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1620 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1622 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1624 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1625 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1627 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1629 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1630 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1631 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1632 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1634 * Revised SPARC target
1636 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1637 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1638 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1639 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1640 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1644 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1645 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1646 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1649 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1651 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1652 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1655 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1657 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1658 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1659 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1660 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1661 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1662 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1663 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1664 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1665 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1667 * New native configurations
1669 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1670 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1671 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1672 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1673 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1675 * New debugging protocols
1677 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1679 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1681 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1682 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1683 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1685 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1687 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1688 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1689 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1690 permanently REMOVED.
1692 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1693 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1694 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1695 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1696 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1697 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1698 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1699 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1700 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1701 sonymips mips-sony-*
1702 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1704 * REMOVED configurations and files
1706 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1707 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1708 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1709 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1710 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1711 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1712 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1713 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1714 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1715 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1716 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1717 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1718 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1719 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1720 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1721 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1722 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1724 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1728 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1729 integrated into GDB.
1731 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1733 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1734 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1735 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1738 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1739 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1740 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1744 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1745 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1746 remote protocol documentation for details.
1748 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1750 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1751 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1752 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1755 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1757 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1758 per-thread variables.
1760 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1762 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1763 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1765 * Separate debug info.
1767 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1768 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1769 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1770 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1771 and optional debug files.
1773 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1775 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1776 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1779 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1780 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1784 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1785 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1786 considered "useable".
1788 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1790 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1791 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1794 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1796 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1797 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1799 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1801 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1802 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1805 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1807 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1808 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1812 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1813 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1814 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1815 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1816 data, for more informative profiling results.
1818 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1820 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1821 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1822 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1824 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1827 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1828 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1829 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1830 in a subsequent -var-update.
1832 * New native configurations.
1834 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1836 * Multi-arched targets.
1838 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1839 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1841 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1843 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1844 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1845 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1846 permanently REMOVED.
1848 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1849 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1850 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1851 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1852 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1853 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1854 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1855 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1856 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1857 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1858 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1859 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1861 * REMOVED configurations and files
1864 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1865 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1866 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1867 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1868 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1869 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1871 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1872 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1873 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1874 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1875 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1876 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1878 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1880 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1881 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1882 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1883 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1884 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1886 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1888 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1890 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1891 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1892 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1893 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1894 shared libs like mad''.
1896 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1898 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1899 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1900 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1901 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1903 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1905 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1906 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1909 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1910 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1912 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1913 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1915 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1916 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1917 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1918 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1920 * Multi-arched targets.
1922 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1923 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1925 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1926 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1927 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1931 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1934 * New native configurations
1936 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1937 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1938 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1939 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1941 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1943 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1944 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1945 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1946 permanently REMOVED.
1948 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1949 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1950 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1951 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1952 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1953 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1954 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1955 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1956 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1957 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1959 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1960 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1962 * OBSOLETE languages
1964 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1966 * REMOVED configurations and files
1968 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1969 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1970 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1971 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1972 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1974 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1976 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1978 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1979 commands. The default is 1024.
1981 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1983 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1985 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1987 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1988 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1989 from a file into memory (restore).
1991 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1993 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1994 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1995 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1997 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2005 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2006 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2007 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2009 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2010 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2011 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2013 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2014 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2015 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2017 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2018 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2019 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2021 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2023 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2025 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2026 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2027 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2028 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2029 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2030 (notably embedded) targets.
2032 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2034 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2035 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2036 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2037 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2039 * New command line option
2041 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2043 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2045 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2046 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2047 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2048 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2049 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2050 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2051 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2052 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2053 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2054 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2056 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2058 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2059 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2061 * New native configurations
2063 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2064 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2065 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2066 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2070 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2072 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2074 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2075 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2076 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2077 permanently REMOVED.
2079 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2080 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2081 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2082 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2083 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2085 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2087 * REMOVED configurations and files
2089 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2091 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2092 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2093 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2094 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2095 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2096 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2097 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2098 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2099 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2100 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2101 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2103 * Changes to command line processing
2105 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2106 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2108 * Changes to key bindings
2110 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2112 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2114 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2116 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2119 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2121 Numerous documentation fixes.
2123 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2125 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2127 * New native configurations
2129 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2130 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2131 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2132 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2133 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2134 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2138 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2140 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2142 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2144 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2145 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2146 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2147 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2148 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2150 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2151 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2152 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2153 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2154 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2155 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2156 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2157 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2159 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2160 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2162 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2163 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2164 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2165 permanently REMOVED.
2167 * REMOVED configurations and files
2169 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2170 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2172 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2176 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2178 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2179 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2184 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2186 * The MI enabled by default.
2188 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2189 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2190 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2191 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2192 which is now deprecated.
2194 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2196 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2197 main features are supported:
2199 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2201 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2204 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2206 - a Pascal expression parser.
2208 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2210 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2212 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2214 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2215 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2217 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2219 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2221 * Changes in completion.
2223 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2224 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2225 users expect at the shell prompt.
2227 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2228 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2229 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2230 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2231 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2232 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2233 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2235 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2237 * New platform-independent commands:
2239 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2240 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2241 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2243 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2245 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2246 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2247 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2249 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2251 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2252 multi-threaded programs though.
2254 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2256 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2258 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2259 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2262 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2264 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2265 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2266 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2267 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2268 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2271 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2272 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2273 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2275 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2277 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2278 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2280 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2281 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2284 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2285 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2286 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2287 a given linear address.
2289 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2290 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2291 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2293 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2295 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2297 * Changes in documentation.
2299 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2300 Documentation License.
2302 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2305 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2307 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2310 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2311 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2312 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2314 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2316 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2317 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2318 contents of this file.
2322 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2324 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2326 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2328 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2329 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2330 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2331 greater level of detail.
2333 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2335 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2336 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2337 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2340 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2342 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2343 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2344 machines ``out of the box''.
2346 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2347 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2348 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2349 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2350 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2352 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2353 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2354 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2355 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2356 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2358 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2359 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2362 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2365 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2366 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2367 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2368 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2370 * New native configurations
2372 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2373 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2377 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2378 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2379 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2380 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2382 * OBSOLETE configurations
2384 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2385 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2387 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2390 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2391 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2392 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2393 be permanently REMOVED.
2395 * Gould support removed
2397 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2399 * New features for SVR4
2401 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2402 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2403 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2405 * Many C++ enhancements
2407 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2408 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2410 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2412 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2413 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2414 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2415 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2417 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2418 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2420 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2422 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2423 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2424 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2426 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2427 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2429 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2431 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2432 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2433 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2435 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2437 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2438 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2439 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2441 * ``apropos'' command added.
2443 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2444 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2445 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2449 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2450 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2451 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2452 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2453 enabled by configuring with:
2455 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2457 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2459 * New native configurations
2461 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2462 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2463 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2467 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2468 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2469 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2471 * OBSOLETE configurations
2473 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2475 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2476 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2477 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2478 be permanently REMOVED.
2482 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2483 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2484 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2485 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2486 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2487 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2488 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2493 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2495 * set extension-language
2497 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2498 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2499 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2500 set extension-language .c c++
2501 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2502 and their associated languages.
2504 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2506 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2507 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2508 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2512 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2513 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2515 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2516 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2518 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2519 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2520 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2521 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2522 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2523 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2524 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2525 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2527 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2528 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2529 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2530 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2534 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2535 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2536 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2537 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2538 for xdb and dbx commands.
2542 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2543 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2544 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2546 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2547 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2548 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2550 * Debugging across forks
2552 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2557 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2558 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2559 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2561 * GDB remote protocol additions
2563 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2564 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2565 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2566 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2568 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2569 full 64-bit address. The command
2571 set remoteaddresssize 32
2573 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2574 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2577 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2578 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2580 maint packet heythere
2582 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2583 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2586 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2587 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2588 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2590 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2592 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2593 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2594 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2596 * mask-address variable for Mips
2598 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2599 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2600 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2602 * Higher serial baud rates
2604 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2605 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2606 to achieve all of these rates.)
2610 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2611 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2614 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2616 * New native configurations
2618 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2619 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2620 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2621 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2622 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2623 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2624 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2628 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2629 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2630 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2631 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2632 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2633 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2634 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2635 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2636 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2637 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2638 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2640 * New debugging protocols
2642 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2643 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2644 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2645 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2646 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2647 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2651 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2652 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2657 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2658 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2660 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2662 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2663 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2664 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2666 * Live range splitting
2668 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2669 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2670 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2674 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2675 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2679 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2680 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2681 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2686 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2691 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2692 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2693 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2694 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2695 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2696 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2700 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2701 the symbol at the specified address.
2705 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2706 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2707 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2708 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2709 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2713 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2714 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2715 of most MIPS variants.
2719 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2720 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2721 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2725 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2726 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2727 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2728 the possible architectures.
2730 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2732 * New native configurations
2734 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2735 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2736 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2737 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2738 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2739 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2743 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2744 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2745 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2746 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2747 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2749 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2753 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2754 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2755 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2756 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2757 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2761 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2763 * Windows 95/NT native
2765 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2766 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2767 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2768 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2769 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2771 * dont-repeat command
2773 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2774 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2775 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2776 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2778 * Send break instead of ^C
2780 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2781 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2782 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2784 * Remote protocol timeout
2786 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2787 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2788 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2790 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2792 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2793 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2794 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2795 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2796 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2798 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2799 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2800 automatically on hpux10.
2802 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2804 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2806 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2808 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2809 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2810 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2811 every character. The default value is 1050.
2813 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2815 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2816 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2817 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2818 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2819 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2820 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2822 * Speedups for remote debugging
2824 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2825 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2826 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2828 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2830 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2831 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2833 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2835 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2837 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2838 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2840 * Remote targets use caching
2842 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2843 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2844 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2845 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2846 off' turns the the data cache off.
2848 * Remote targets may have threads
2850 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2851 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2852 gdb/remote.c for details.
2856 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2857 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2858 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2859 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2860 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2861 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2862 sequence is something like
2864 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2866 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2870 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2871 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2872 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2873 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2874 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2875 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2876 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2877 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2881 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2882 but does simplify configuration and building.
2886 GDB now supports hpux10.
2888 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2890 * New native configurations
2892 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2893 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2894 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2895 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2899 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2900 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2901 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2902 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2905 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2907 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2908 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2909 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2910 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2911 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2913 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2915 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2916 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2919 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2921 To execute the command use:
2924 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2925 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2926 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2928 * New `if' and `while' commands
2930 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2931 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2932 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2933 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2934 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2935 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2936 if the expression is zero.
2938 * Fortran source language mode
2940 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2941 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2942 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2943 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2946 * Better HPUX support
2948 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2949 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2950 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2951 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2952 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2958 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2959 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2965 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2966 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2969 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2970 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2972 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2974 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2975 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2976 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2977 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2978 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2979 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2981 * New DOS host serial code
2983 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2984 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2987 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2989 * New "complete" command
2991 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2992 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2994 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2996 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2997 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2999 * Breakpoint hit counts
3001 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3002 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3003 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3004 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3005 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3008 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3010 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3011 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3012 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3014 * Shared library breakpoints
3016 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3017 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3019 * Hardware watchpoints
3021 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3022 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3024 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3028 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3029 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3031 * Improved Irix 5 support
3033 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3035 * Improved HPPA support
3037 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3039 * New native configurations
3041 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3042 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3043 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3044 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3048 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3049 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3052 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3054 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3055 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3059 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3060 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3062 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3064 * Irix 5 is now supported
3068 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3069 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3070 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3071 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3072 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3075 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3077 * User visible changes:
3081 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3082 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3083 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3084 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3085 debugging info for the mips target).
3087 * DEC Alpha native support
3089 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3090 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3091 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3092 Alpha-specific notes.
3094 * Preliminary thread implementation
3096 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3098 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3100 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3101 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3104 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3106 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3107 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3108 call methods, ...etc.
3110 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3112 * User visible changes:
3114 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3115 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3116 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3117 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3119 Filename completion now works.
3121 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3122 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3123 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3125 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3126 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3127 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3128 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3129 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3133 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3134 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3137 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3141 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3142 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3143 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3147 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3148 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3149 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3150 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3151 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3155 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3156 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3157 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3159 * New targets supported
3161 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3162 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3163 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3164 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3165 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3167 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3168 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3169 GO32 memory extender.
3171 * New remote protocols
3173 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3175 * New source languages supported
3177 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3178 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3179 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3182 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3184 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3186 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3187 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3188 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3189 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3190 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3191 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3193 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3195 * Faster and better demangling
3197 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3198 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3199 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3200 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3201 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3202 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3205 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3206 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3207 compiler does not actually implement.
3209 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3211 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3212 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3213 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3214 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3215 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3216 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3219 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3220 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3222 * Improved configure script
3224 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3225 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3226 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3227 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3229 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3230 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3231 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3232 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3233 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3234 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3236 * Documentation improvements
3238 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3239 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3240 before submitting changes.
3242 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3243 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3244 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3245 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3246 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3248 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3249 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3250 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3251 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3252 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3253 around this problem.
3257 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3258 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3259 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3262 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3263 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3265 * New native hosts supported
3267 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3268 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3270 * New targets supported
3272 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3274 * New file formats supported
3276 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3277 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3281 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3283 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3284 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3286 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3287 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3288 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3290 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3291 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3293 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3294 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3295 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3298 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3299 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3300 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3301 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3302 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3304 * Internal improvements
3306 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3307 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3309 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3310 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3311 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3312 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3313 shared code that handles any of them.
3315 * New command line options
3317 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3321 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3322 General Public License.
3324 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3326 * Host/native/target split
3328 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3329 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3330 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3331 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3332 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3334 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3335 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3336 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3337 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3338 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3339 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3340 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3342 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3343 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3344 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3346 * New hosts supported
3348 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3349 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3350 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3352 * New targets supported
3354 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3355 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3357 * New native hosts supported
3359 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3360 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3361 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3363 * New file formats supported
3365 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3366 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3367 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3371 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3372 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3373 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3375 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3377 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3378 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3379 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3380 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3384 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3385 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3386 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3388 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3392 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3393 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3396 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3397 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3399 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3400 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3401 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3402 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3403 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3404 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3406 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3407 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3408 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3409 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3413 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3414 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3415 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3416 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3417 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3419 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3420 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3421 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3422 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3426 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3427 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3428 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3429 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3430 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3431 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3432 each instruction being stepped through.
3434 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3435 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3437 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3438 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3439 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3440 processor with a serial port.
3444 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3445 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3446 supported, and what files each one uses.
3450 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3451 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3452 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3453 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3455 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3456 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3457 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3458 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3462 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3463 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3464 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3465 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3466 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3467 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3469 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3472 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3474 * Better support for C++ function names
3476 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3477 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3478 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3479 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3480 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3482 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3483 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3484 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3485 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3486 for the list of formats.
3488 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3490 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3491 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3492 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3493 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3494 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3495 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3498 * New 'maintenance' command
3500 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3501 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3502 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3504 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3505 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3506 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3507 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3508 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3509 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3511 The following commands are new:
3513 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3514 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3515 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3517 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3519 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3520 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3521 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3522 read after argv processing.
3524 * New hosts supported
3526 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3528 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3530 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3531 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3532 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3533 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3534 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3537 * New targets supported
3539 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3541 * More smarts about finding #include files
3543 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3544 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3545 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3546 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3547 the one that contains your sources.
3549 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3550 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3551 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3553 * Interesting infernals change
3555 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3556 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3557 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3558 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3560 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3562 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3563 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3564 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3566 See the ChangeLog for details.
3568 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3570 * New machines supported (host and target)
3572 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3574 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3576 * New malloc package
3578 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3579 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3580 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3581 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3582 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3583 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3587 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3588 'help info proc' for details.
3590 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3592 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3593 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3596 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3598 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3599 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3600 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3601 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3602 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3603 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3605 * Cross byte order fixes
3607 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3608 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3610 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3612 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3613 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3614 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3615 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3616 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3617 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3618 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3619 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3620 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3621 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3623 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3624 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3625 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3626 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3628 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3629 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3630 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3633 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3635 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3636 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3637 shared across multiple host platforms.
3639 * longjmp() handling
3641 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3642 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3643 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3644 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3648 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3649 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3654 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3655 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3656 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3658 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3660 * New machines supported (host and target)
3662 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3664 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3665 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3667 * New machines supported (target)
3669 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3673 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3674 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3675 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3677 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3678 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3679 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3680 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3681 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3684 * New features for SVR4
3686 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3687 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3688 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3690 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3691 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3692 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3694 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3695 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3697 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3699 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3700 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3701 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3702 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3703 same code linked statically.
3707 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3708 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3709 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3710 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3711 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3712 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3716 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3717 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3718 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3721 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3723 * New machines supported (host and target)
3725 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3726 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3727 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3729 * Almost SCO Unix support
3731 We had hoped to support:
3732 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3733 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3734 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3735 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3737 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3739 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3740 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3741 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3742 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3747 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3748 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3749 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3753 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3754 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3755 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3757 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3759 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3760 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3761 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3763 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3764 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3765 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3766 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3769 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3770 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3771 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3772 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3775 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3776 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3779 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3780 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3781 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3784 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3786 * Improved configuration
3788 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3789 Porting BFD is simpler.
3793 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3794 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3795 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3796 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3800 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3802 * New host supported (not target)
3804 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3807 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3809 * Multiple source language support
3811 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3812 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3813 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3814 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3815 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3816 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3820 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3821 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3822 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3823 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3825 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3826 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3827 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3829 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3830 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3834 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3835 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3836 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3837 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3840 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3842 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3843 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3844 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3845 examining core files.
3849 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3852 * New machines supported (host and target)
3854 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3855 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3856 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3858 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3860 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3862 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3864 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3865 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3866 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3868 * New remote interfaces
3874 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3878 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3880 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3881 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3882 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3883 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3884 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3885 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3886 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3887 stub on the target system.
3889 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3891 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3892 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3893 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3895 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3896 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3899 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3901 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3902 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3904 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3905 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3906 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3908 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3909 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3910 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3911 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3913 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3914 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3915 it is already running. Default is ON.
3917 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3918 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3919 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3920 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3923 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3924 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3925 or the value of the environment variable
3928 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3929 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3932 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3933 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3934 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3936 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3937 history expansion will be performed on
3938 command line input. The default is OFF.
3940 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3941 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3942 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3944 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3945 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3946 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3949 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3950 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3951 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3954 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3955 ``set width'' instead.
3957 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3958 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3959 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3960 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3962 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3965 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3968 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3971 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3974 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3976 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3977 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3978 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3982 * Support for Shared Libraries
3984 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3985 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3986 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3987 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3988 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3989 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3990 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3991 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3993 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3994 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3995 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3997 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4002 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4003 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4004 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4005 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4006 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4007 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4009 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4011 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4013 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4014 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4015 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4018 * C++ multiple inheritance
4020 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4023 * C++ exception handling
4025 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4026 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4027 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4030 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4031 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4032 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4034 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4035 current stack frame.
4038 * Minor command changes
4040 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4041 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4042 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4044 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4045 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4046 frames without printing.
4048 * New directory command
4050 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4051 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4052 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4053 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4054 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4056 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4058 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4061 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4062 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4063 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4064 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / platform / upstream / binutils.git / blob