1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.0:
6 * Removed --with-mmalloc
8 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
9 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
11 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
13 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
14 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
15 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
16 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
18 * Revised SPARC target
20 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
21 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
22 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
23 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
24 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
28 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
29 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
30 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
33 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
35 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
36 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
39 * New native configurations
41 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
42 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
43 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
44 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
46 * New debugging protocols
48 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
50 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
52 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
53 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
54 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
56 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
58 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
59 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
60 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
63 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
64 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
65 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
66 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
67 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
68 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
69 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
70 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
71 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
73 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
75 * REMOVED configurations and files
77 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
78 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
79 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
80 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
81 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
82 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
83 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
84 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
85 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
86 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
87 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
88 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
89 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
90 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
91 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
92 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
94 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
98 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
101 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
103 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
104 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
105 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
108 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
109 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
114 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
115 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
116 remote protocol documentation for details.
118 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
120 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
121 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
122 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
125 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
127 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
128 per-thread variables.
130 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
132 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
133 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
135 * Separate debug info.
137 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
138 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
139 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
140 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
141 and optional debug files.
143 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
145 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
146 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
149 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
150 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
154 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
155 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
156 considered "useable".
158 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
160 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
161 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
164 * GDB supports logging output to a file
166 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
167 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
169 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
171 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
172 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
175 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
177 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
178 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
182 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
183 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
184 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
185 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
186 data, for more informative profiling results.
188 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
190 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
191 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
192 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
194 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
197 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
198 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
199 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
200 in a subsequent -var-update.
202 * New native configurations.
204 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
206 * Multi-arched targets.
208 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
209 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
211 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
213 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
214 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
215 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
218 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
219 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
220 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
221 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
222 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
223 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
224 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
225 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
226 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
227 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
228 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
229 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
231 * REMOVED configurations and files
234 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
235 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
236 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
237 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
238 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
239 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
241 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
242 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
243 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
244 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
245 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
246 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
248 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
250 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
251 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
252 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
253 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
254 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
256 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
258 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
260 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
261 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
262 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
263 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
264 shared libs like mad''.
266 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
268 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
269 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
270 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
271 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
273 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
275 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
276 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
279 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
280 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
282 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
283 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
285 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
286 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
287 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
288 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
290 * Multi-arched targets.
292 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
293 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
295 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
296 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
297 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
301 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
304 * New native configurations
306 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
307 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
308 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
309 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
311 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
313 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
314 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
315 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
318 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
319 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
320 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
321 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
322 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
323 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
324 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
325 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
326 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
327 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
329 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
330 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
334 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
336 * REMOVED configurations and files
338 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
339 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
340 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
341 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
342 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
344 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
346 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
348 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
349 commands. The default is 1024.
351 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
353 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
355 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
357 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
358 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
359 from a file into memory (restore).
361 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
363 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
364 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
365 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
367 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
375 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
376 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
377 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
379 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
380 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
381 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
383 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
384 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
385 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
387 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
388 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
389 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
391 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
393 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
395 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
396 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
397 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
398 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
399 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
400 (notably embedded) targets.
402 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
404 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
405 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
406 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
407 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
409 * New command line option
411 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
413 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
415 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
416 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
417 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
418 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
419 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
420 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
421 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
422 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
423 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
424 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
426 * Changes in ARM configurations.
428 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
429 configuration is fully multi-arch.
431 * New native configurations
433 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
434 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
435 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
436 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
440 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
442 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
444 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
445 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
446 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
449 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
450 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
451 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
452 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
453 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
455 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
457 * REMOVED configurations and files
459 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
461 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
462 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
463 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
464 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
465 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
466 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
467 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
468 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
469 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
470 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
471 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
473 * Changes to command line processing
475 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
476 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
478 * Changes to key bindings
480 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
482 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
484 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
486 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
489 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
491 Numerous documentation fixes.
493 Numerous testsuite fixes.
495 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
497 * New native configurations
499 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
500 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
501 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
502 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
504 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
508 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
510 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
512 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
514 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
515 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
516 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
517 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
518 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
520 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
521 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
522 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
523 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
524 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
525 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
526 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
527 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
529 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
530 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
532 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
533 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
534 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
537 * REMOVED configurations and files
539 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
540 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
542 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
546 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
548 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
549 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
554 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
556 * The MI enabled by default.
558 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
559 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
560 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
561 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
562 which is now deprecated.
564 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
566 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
567 main features are supported:
569 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
571 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
574 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
576 - a Pascal expression parser.
578 However, some important features are not yet supported.
580 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
582 - there are some problems with boolean types;
584 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
585 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
587 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
589 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
591 * Changes in completion.
593 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
594 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
595 users expect at the shell prompt.
597 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
598 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
599 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
600 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
601 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
602 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
603 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
605 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
607 * New platform-independent commands:
609 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
610 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
611 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
613 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
615 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
616 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
617 many threads as your system allows you to have.
619 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
621 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
622 multi-threaded programs though.
624 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
626 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
628 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
629 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
632 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
634 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
635 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
636 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
637 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
638 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
641 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
642 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
643 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
645 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
647 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
648 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
650 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
651 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
654 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
655 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
656 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
657 a given linear address.
659 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
660 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
661 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
663 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
665 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
667 * Changes in documentation.
669 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
670 Documentation License.
672 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
675 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
677 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
680 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
681 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
682 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
684 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
686 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
687 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
688 contents of this file.
692 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
694 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
696 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
698 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
699 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
700 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
701 greater level of detail.
703 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
705 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
706 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
707 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
710 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
712 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
713 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
714 machines ``out of the box''.
716 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
717 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
718 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
719 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
720 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
722 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
723 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
724 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
725 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
726 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
728 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
729 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
732 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
735 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
736 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
737 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
738 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
740 * New native configurations
742 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
743 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
747 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
748 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
749 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
750 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
752 * OBSOLETE configurations
754 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
755 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
757 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
760 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
761 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
762 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
763 be permanently REMOVED.
765 * Gould support removed
767 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
769 * New features for SVR4
771 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
772 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
773 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
775 * Many C++ enhancements
777 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
778 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
780 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
782 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
783 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
784 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
785 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
787 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
788 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
790 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
792 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
793 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
794 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
796 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
797 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
799 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
801 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
802 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
803 include ``set remote P-packet''.
805 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
807 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
808 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
809 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
811 * ``apropos'' command added.
813 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
814 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
815 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
819 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
820 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
821 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
822 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
823 enabled by configuring with:
825 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
827 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
829 * New native configurations
831 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
832 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
833 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
837 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
838 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
839 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
841 * OBSOLETE configurations
843 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
845 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
846 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
847 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
848 be permanently REMOVED.
852 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
853 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
854 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
855 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
856 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
857 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
858 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
863 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
865 * set extension-language
867 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
868 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
869 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
870 set extension-language .c c++
871 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
872 and their associated languages.
874 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
876 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
877 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
878 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
882 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
883 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
885 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
886 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
888 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
889 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
890 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
891 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
892 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
893 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
894 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
895 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
897 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
898 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
899 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
900 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
904 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
905 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
906 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
907 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
908 for xdb and dbx commands.
912 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
913 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
914 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
916 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
917 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
918 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
920 * Debugging across forks
922 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
927 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
928 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
929 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
931 * GDB remote protocol additions
933 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
934 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
935 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
936 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
938 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
939 full 64-bit address. The command
941 set remoteaddresssize 32
943 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
944 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
947 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
948 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
950 maint packet heythere
952 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
953 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
956 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
957 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
958 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
960 * Tracing can collect general expressions
962 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
963 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
964 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
966 * mask-address variable for Mips
968 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
969 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
970 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
972 * Higher serial baud rates
974 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
975 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
976 to achieve all of these rates.)
980 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
981 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
984 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
986 * New native configurations
988 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
989 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
990 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
991 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
992 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
993 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
994 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
998 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
999 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1000 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1001 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1002 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1003 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1004 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1005 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1006 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1007 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1008 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1010 * New debugging protocols
1012 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1013 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1014 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1015 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1016 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1017 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1021 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1022 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1027 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1028 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1030 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1032 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1033 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1034 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1036 * Live range splitting
1038 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1039 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1040 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1044 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1045 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1049 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1050 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1051 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1056 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1061 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1062 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1063 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1064 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1065 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1066 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1070 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1071 the symbol at the specified address.
1075 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1076 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1077 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1078 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1079 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1083 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1084 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1085 of most MIPS variants.
1089 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1090 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1091 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1095 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1096 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1097 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1098 the possible architectures.
1100 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1102 * New native configurations
1104 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1105 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1106 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1107 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1108 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1109 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1113 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1114 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1115 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1116 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1117 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1119 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1123 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1124 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1125 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1126 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1127 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1131 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1133 * Windows 95/NT native
1135 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1136 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1137 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1138 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1139 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1141 * dont-repeat command
1143 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1144 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1145 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1146 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1148 * Send break instead of ^C
1150 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1151 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1152 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1154 * Remote protocol timeout
1156 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1157 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1158 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1160 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1162 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1163 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1164 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1165 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1166 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1168 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1169 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1170 automatically on hpux10.
1172 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1174 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1176 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1178 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1179 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1180 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1181 every character. The default value is 1050.
1183 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1185 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1186 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1187 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1188 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1189 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1190 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1192 * Speedups for remote debugging
1194 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1195 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1196 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1198 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1200 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1201 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1203 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1205 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1207 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1208 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1210 * Remote targets use caching
1212 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1213 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1214 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1215 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1216 off' turns the the data cache off.
1218 * Remote targets may have threads
1220 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1221 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1222 gdb/remote.c for details.
1226 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1227 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1228 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1229 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1230 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1231 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1232 sequence is something like
1234 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1236 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1240 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1241 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1242 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1243 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1244 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1245 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1246 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1247 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1251 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1252 but does simplify configuration and building.
1256 GDB now supports hpux10.
1258 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1260 * New native configurations
1262 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1263 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1264 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1265 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1269 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1270 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1271 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1272 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1275 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1277 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1278 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1279 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1280 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1281 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1283 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1285 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1286 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1289 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1291 To execute the command use:
1294 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1295 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1296 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1298 * New `if' and `while' commands
1300 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1301 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1302 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1303 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1304 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1305 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1306 if the expression is zero.
1308 * Fortran source language mode
1310 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1311 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1312 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1313 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1316 * Better HPUX support
1318 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1319 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1320 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1321 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1322 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1328 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1329 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1335 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1336 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1339 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1340 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1342 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1344 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1345 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1346 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1347 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1348 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1349 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1351 * New DOS host serial code
1353 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1354 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1357 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1359 * New "complete" command
1361 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1362 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1364 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1366 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1367 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1369 * Breakpoint hit counts
1371 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1372 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1373 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1374 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1375 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1378 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1380 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1381 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1382 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1384 * Shared library breakpoints
1386 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1387 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1389 * Hardware watchpoints
1391 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1392 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1394 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1398 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1399 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1401 * Improved Irix 5 support
1403 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1405 * Improved HPPA support
1407 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1409 * New native configurations
1411 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1412 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1413 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1414 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1418 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1419 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1422 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1424 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1425 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1429 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1430 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1432 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1434 * Irix 5 is now supported
1438 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1439 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1440 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1441 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1442 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1445 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1447 * User visible changes:
1451 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1452 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1453 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1454 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1455 debugging info for the mips target).
1457 * DEC Alpha native support
1459 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1460 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1461 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1462 Alpha-specific notes.
1464 * Preliminary thread implementation
1466 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1468 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1470 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1471 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1474 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1476 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1477 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1478 call methods, ...etc.
1480 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1482 * User visible changes:
1484 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1485 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1486 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1487 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1489 Filename completion now works.
1491 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1492 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1493 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1495 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1496 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1497 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1498 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1499 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1503 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1504 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1507 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1511 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1512 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1513 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1517 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1518 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1519 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1520 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1521 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1525 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1526 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1527 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1529 * New targets supported
1531 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1532 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1533 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1534 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1535 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1537 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1538 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1539 GO32 memory extender.
1541 * New remote protocols
1543 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1545 * New source languages supported
1547 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1548 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1549 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1552 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1554 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1556 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1557 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1558 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1559 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1560 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1561 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1563 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1565 * Faster and better demangling
1567 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1568 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1569 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1570 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1571 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1572 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1575 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1576 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1577 compiler does not actually implement.
1579 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1581 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1582 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1583 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1584 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1585 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1586 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1589 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1590 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1592 * Improved configure script
1594 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1595 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1596 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1597 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1599 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1600 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1601 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1602 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1603 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1604 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1606 * Documentation improvements
1608 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1609 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1610 before submitting changes.
1612 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1613 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1614 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1615 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1616 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1618 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1619 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1620 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1621 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1622 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1623 around this problem.
1627 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1628 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1629 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1632 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1633 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1635 * New native hosts supported
1637 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1638 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1640 * New targets supported
1642 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1644 * New file formats supported
1646 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1647 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1651 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1653 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1654 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1656 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1657 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1658 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1660 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1661 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1663 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1664 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1665 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1668 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1669 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1670 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1671 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1672 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1674 * Internal improvements
1676 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1677 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1679 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1680 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1681 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1682 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1683 shared code that handles any of them.
1685 * New command line options
1687 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1691 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1692 General Public License.
1694 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1696 * Host/native/target split
1698 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1699 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1700 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1701 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1702 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1704 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1705 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1706 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1707 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1708 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1709 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1710 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1712 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1713 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1714 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1716 * New hosts supported
1718 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1719 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1720 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1722 * New targets supported
1724 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1725 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1727 * New native hosts supported
1729 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1730 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1731 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1733 * New file formats supported
1735 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1736 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1737 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1741 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1742 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1743 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1745 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1747 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1748 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1749 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1750 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1754 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1755 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1756 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1758 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1762 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1763 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1766 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1767 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1769 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1770 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1771 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1772 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1773 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1774 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1776 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1777 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1778 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1779 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1783 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1784 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1785 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1786 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1787 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1789 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1790 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1791 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1792 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1796 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1797 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1798 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1799 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1800 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1801 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1802 each instruction being stepped through.
1804 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1805 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1807 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1808 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1809 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1810 processor with a serial port.
1814 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1815 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1816 supported, and what files each one uses.
1820 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1821 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1822 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1823 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1825 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1826 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1827 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1828 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1832 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1833 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1834 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1835 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1836 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1837 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1839 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1842 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1844 * Better support for C++ function names
1846 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1847 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1848 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1849 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1850 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1852 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1853 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1854 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1855 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1856 for the list of formats.
1858 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1860 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1861 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1862 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1863 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1864 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1865 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1868 * New 'maintenance' command
1870 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1871 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1872 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1874 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1875 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1876 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1877 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1878 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1879 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1881 The following commands are new:
1883 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1884 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1885 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1887 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1889 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1890 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1891 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1892 read after argv processing.
1894 * New hosts supported
1896 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1898 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1900 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1901 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1902 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1903 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1904 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1907 * New targets supported
1909 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1911 * More smarts about finding #include files
1913 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1914 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1915 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1916 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1917 the one that contains your sources.
1919 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1920 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1921 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1923 * Interesting infernals change
1925 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1926 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1927 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1928 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1930 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1932 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1933 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1934 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1936 See the ChangeLog for details.
1938 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1940 * New machines supported (host and target)
1942 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1944 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1946 * New malloc package
1948 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1949 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1950 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1951 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1952 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1953 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1957 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1958 'help info proc' for details.
1960 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1962 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1963 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1966 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1968 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1969 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1970 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1971 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1972 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1973 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1975 * Cross byte order fixes
1977 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1978 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1980 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1982 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1983 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1984 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1985 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1986 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1987 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1988 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1989 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1990 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1991 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1993 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1994 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1995 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1996 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1998 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1999 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2000 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2003 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2005 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2006 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2007 shared across multiple host platforms.
2009 * longjmp() handling
2011 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2012 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2013 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2014 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2018 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2019 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2024 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2025 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2026 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2028 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2030 * New machines supported (host and target)
2032 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2034 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2035 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2037 * New machines supported (target)
2039 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2043 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2044 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2045 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2047 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2048 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2049 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2050 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2051 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2054 * New features for SVR4
2056 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2057 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2058 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2060 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2061 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2062 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2064 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2065 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2067 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2069 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2070 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2071 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2072 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2073 same code linked statically.
2077 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2078 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2079 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2080 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2081 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2082 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2086 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2087 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2088 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2091 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2093 * New machines supported (host and target)
2095 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2096 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2097 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2099 * Almost SCO Unix support
2101 We had hoped to support:
2102 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2103 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2104 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2105 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2107 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2109 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2110 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2111 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2112 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2117 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2118 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2119 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2123 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2124 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2125 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2127 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2129 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2130 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2131 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2133 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2134 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2135 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2136 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2139 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2140 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2141 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2142 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2145 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2146 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2149 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2150 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2151 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2154 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2156 * Improved configuration
2158 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2159 Porting BFD is simpler.
2163 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2164 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2165 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2166 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2170 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2172 * New host supported (not target)
2174 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2177 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2179 * Multiple source language support
2181 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2182 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2183 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2184 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2185 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2186 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2190 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2191 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2192 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2193 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2195 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2196 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2197 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2199 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2200 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2204 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2205 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2206 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2207 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2210 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2212 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2213 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2214 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2215 examining core files.
2219 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2222 * New machines supported (host and target)
2224 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2225 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2226 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2228 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2230 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2232 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2234 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2235 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2236 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2238 * New remote interfaces
2244 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2248 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2250 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2251 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2252 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2253 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2254 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2255 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2256 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2257 stub on the target system.
2259 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2261 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2262 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2263 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2265 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2266 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2269 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2271 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2272 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2274 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2275 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2276 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2278 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2279 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2280 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2281 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2283 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2284 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2285 it is already running. Default is ON.
2287 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2288 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2289 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2290 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2293 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2294 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2295 or the value of the environment variable
2298 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2299 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2302 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2303 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2304 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2306 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2307 history expansion will be performed on
2308 command line input. The default is OFF.
2310 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2311 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2312 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2314 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2315 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2316 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2319 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2320 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2321 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2324 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2325 ``set width'' instead.
2327 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2328 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2329 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2330 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2332 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2335 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2338 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2341 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2344 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2346 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2347 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2348 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2352 * Support for Shared Libraries
2354 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2355 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2356 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2357 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2358 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2359 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2360 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2361 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2363 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2364 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2365 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2367 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2372 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2373 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2374 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2375 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2376 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2377 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2379 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2381 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2383 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2384 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2385 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2388 * C++ multiple inheritance
2390 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2393 * C++ exception handling
2395 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2396 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2397 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2400 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2401 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2402 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2404 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2405 current stack frame.
2408 * Minor command changes
2410 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2411 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2412 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2414 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2415 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2416 frames without printing.
2418 * New directory command
2420 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2421 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2422 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2423 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2424 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2426 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2428 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2431 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2432 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2433 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2434 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob