1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.1:
6 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
8 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
9 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
10 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
11 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
12 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
14 These fixes were tested on i386 GNU/Linux systems that include a 2.4
17 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
19 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
21 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
22 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
24 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
26 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
27 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
28 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
30 * New native configurations
32 OpenBSD/m68k m68k-*-openbsd*
33 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
34 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
35 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
37 * REMOVED configurations and files
39 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
40 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
41 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
42 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
43 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
44 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
45 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
46 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
47 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
49 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
51 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
53 * Removed --with-mmalloc
55 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
56 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
58 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
60 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
61 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
62 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
63 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
65 * Revised SPARC target
67 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
68 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
69 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
70 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
71 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
75 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
76 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
77 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
80 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
82 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
83 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
86 * C++ nested types and namespaces
88 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
89 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
90 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
91 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
92 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
93 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
94 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
95 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
96 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
98 * New native configurations
100 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
101 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
102 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
103 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
104 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
106 * New debugging protocols
108 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
110 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
112 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
113 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
114 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
116 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
118 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
119 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
120 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
123 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
124 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
125 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
126 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
127 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
128 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
129 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
130 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
131 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
133 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
135 * REMOVED configurations and files
137 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
138 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
139 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
140 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
141 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
142 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
143 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
144 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
145 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
146 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
147 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
148 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
149 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
150 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
151 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
152 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
153 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
155 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
159 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
162 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
164 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
165 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
166 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
169 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
170 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
175 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
176 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
177 remote protocol documentation for details.
179 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
181 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
182 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
183 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
186 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
188 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
189 per-thread variables.
191 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
193 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
194 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
196 * Separate debug info.
198 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
199 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
200 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
201 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
202 and optional debug files.
204 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
206 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
207 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
210 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
211 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
215 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
216 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
217 considered "useable".
219 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
221 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
222 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
225 * GDB supports logging output to a file
227 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
228 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
230 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
232 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
233 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
236 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
238 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
239 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
243 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
244 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
245 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
246 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
247 data, for more informative profiling results.
249 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
251 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
252 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
253 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
255 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
258 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
259 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
260 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
261 in a subsequent -var-update.
263 * New native configurations.
265 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
267 * Multi-arched targets.
269 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
270 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
272 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
274 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
275 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
276 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
279 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
280 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
281 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
282 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
283 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
284 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
285 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
286 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
287 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
288 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
289 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
290 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
292 * REMOVED configurations and files
295 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
296 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
297 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
298 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
299 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
300 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
302 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
303 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
304 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
305 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
306 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
307 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
309 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
311 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
312 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
313 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
314 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
315 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
317 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
319 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
321 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
322 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
323 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
324 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
325 shared libs like mad''.
327 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
329 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
330 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
331 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
332 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
334 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
336 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
337 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
340 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
341 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
343 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
344 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
346 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
347 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
348 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
349 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
351 * Multi-arched targets.
353 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
354 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
356 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
357 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
358 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
362 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
365 * New native configurations
367 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
368 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
369 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
370 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
372 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
374 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
375 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
376 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
379 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
380 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
381 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
382 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
383 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
384 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
385 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
386 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
387 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
388 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
390 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
391 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
395 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
397 * REMOVED configurations and files
399 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
400 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
401 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
402 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
403 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
405 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
407 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
409 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
410 commands. The default is 1024.
412 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
414 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
416 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
418 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
419 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
420 from a file into memory (restore).
422 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
424 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
425 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
426 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
428 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
436 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
437 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
438 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
440 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
441 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
442 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
444 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
445 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
446 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
448 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
449 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
450 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
452 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
454 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
456 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
457 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
458 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
459 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
460 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
461 (notably embedded) targets.
463 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
465 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
466 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
467 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
468 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
470 * New command line option
472 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
474 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
476 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
477 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
478 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
479 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
480 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
481 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
482 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
483 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
484 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
485 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
487 * Changes in ARM configurations.
489 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
490 configuration is fully multi-arch.
492 * New native configurations
494 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
495 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
496 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
497 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
501 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
503 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
505 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
506 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
507 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
510 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
511 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
512 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
513 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
514 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
516 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
518 * REMOVED configurations and files
520 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
522 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
523 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
524 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
525 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
526 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
527 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
528 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
529 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
530 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
531 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
532 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
534 * Changes to command line processing
536 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
537 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
539 * Changes to key bindings
541 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
543 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
545 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
547 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
550 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
552 Numerous documentation fixes.
554 Numerous testsuite fixes.
556 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
558 * New native configurations
560 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
561 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
562 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
563 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
565 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
569 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
571 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
573 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
575 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
576 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
577 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
578 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
579 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
581 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
582 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
583 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
584 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
585 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
586 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
587 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
588 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
590 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
591 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
593 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
594 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
595 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
598 * REMOVED configurations and files
600 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
601 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
603 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
607 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
609 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
610 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
615 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
617 * The MI enabled by default.
619 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
620 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
621 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
622 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
623 which is now deprecated.
625 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
627 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
628 main features are supported:
630 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
632 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
635 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
637 - a Pascal expression parser.
639 However, some important features are not yet supported.
641 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
643 - there are some problems with boolean types;
645 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
646 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
648 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
650 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
652 * Changes in completion.
654 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
655 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
656 users expect at the shell prompt.
658 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
659 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
660 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
661 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
662 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
663 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
664 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
666 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
668 * New platform-independent commands:
670 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
671 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
672 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
674 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
676 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
677 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
678 many threads as your system allows you to have.
680 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
682 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
683 multi-threaded programs though.
685 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
687 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
689 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
690 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
693 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
695 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
696 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
697 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
698 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
699 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
702 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
703 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
704 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
706 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
708 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
709 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
711 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
712 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
715 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
716 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
717 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
718 a given linear address.
720 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
721 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
722 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
724 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
726 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
728 * Changes in documentation.
730 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
731 Documentation License.
733 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
736 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
738 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
741 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
742 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
743 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
745 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
747 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
748 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
749 contents of this file.
753 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
755 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
757 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
759 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
760 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
761 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
762 greater level of detail.
764 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
766 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
767 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
768 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
771 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
773 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
774 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
775 machines ``out of the box''.
777 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
778 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
779 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
780 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
781 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
783 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
784 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
785 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
786 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
787 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
789 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
790 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
793 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
796 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
797 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
798 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
799 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
801 * New native configurations
803 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
804 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
808 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
809 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
810 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
811 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
813 * OBSOLETE configurations
815 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
816 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
818 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
821 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
822 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
823 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
824 be permanently REMOVED.
826 * Gould support removed
828 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
830 * New features for SVR4
832 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
833 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
834 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
836 * Many C++ enhancements
838 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
839 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
841 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
843 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
844 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
845 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
846 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
848 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
849 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
851 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
853 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
854 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
855 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
857 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
858 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
860 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
862 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
863 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
864 include ``set remote P-packet''.
866 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
868 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
869 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
870 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
872 * ``apropos'' command added.
874 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
875 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
876 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
880 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
881 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
882 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
883 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
884 enabled by configuring with:
886 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
888 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
890 * New native configurations
892 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
893 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
894 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
898 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
899 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
900 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
902 * OBSOLETE configurations
904 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
906 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
907 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
908 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
909 be permanently REMOVED.
913 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
914 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
915 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
916 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
917 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
918 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
919 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
924 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
926 * set extension-language
928 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
929 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
930 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
931 set extension-language .c c++
932 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
933 and their associated languages.
935 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
937 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
938 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
939 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
943 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
944 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
946 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
947 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
949 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
950 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
951 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
952 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
953 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
954 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
955 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
956 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
958 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
959 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
960 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
961 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
965 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
966 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
967 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
968 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
969 for xdb and dbx commands.
973 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
974 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
975 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
977 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
978 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
979 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
981 * Debugging across forks
983 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
988 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
989 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
990 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
992 * GDB remote protocol additions
994 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
995 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
996 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
997 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
999 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1000 full 64-bit address. The command
1002 set remoteaddresssize 32
1004 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1005 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1008 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1009 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1011 maint packet heythere
1013 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1014 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1017 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1018 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1019 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1021 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1023 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1024 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1025 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1027 * mask-address variable for Mips
1029 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1030 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1031 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1033 * Higher serial baud rates
1035 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1036 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1037 to achieve all of these rates.)
1041 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1042 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1045 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1047 * New native configurations
1049 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1050 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1051 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1052 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1053 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1054 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1055 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1059 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1060 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1061 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1062 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1063 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1064 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1065 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1066 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1067 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1068 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1069 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1071 * New debugging protocols
1073 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1074 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1075 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1076 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1077 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1078 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1082 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1083 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1088 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1089 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1091 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1093 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1094 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1095 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1097 * Live range splitting
1099 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1100 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1101 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1105 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1106 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1110 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1111 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1112 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1117 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1122 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1123 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1124 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1125 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1126 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1127 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1131 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1132 the symbol at the specified address.
1136 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1137 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1138 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1139 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1140 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1144 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1145 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1146 of most MIPS variants.
1150 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1151 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1152 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1156 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1157 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1158 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1159 the possible architectures.
1161 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1163 * New native configurations
1165 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1166 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1167 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1168 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1169 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1170 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1174 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1175 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1176 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1177 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1178 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1180 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1184 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1185 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1186 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1187 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1188 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1192 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1194 * Windows 95/NT native
1196 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1197 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1198 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1199 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1200 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1202 * dont-repeat command
1204 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1205 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1206 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1207 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1209 * Send break instead of ^C
1211 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1212 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1213 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1215 * Remote protocol timeout
1217 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1218 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1219 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1221 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1223 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1224 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1225 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1226 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1227 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1229 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1230 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1231 automatically on hpux10.
1233 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1235 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1237 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1239 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1240 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1241 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1242 every character. The default value is 1050.
1244 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1246 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1247 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1248 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1249 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1250 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1251 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1253 * Speedups for remote debugging
1255 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1256 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1257 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1259 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1261 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1262 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1264 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1266 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1268 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1269 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1271 * Remote targets use caching
1273 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1274 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1275 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1276 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1277 off' turns the the data cache off.
1279 * Remote targets may have threads
1281 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1282 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1283 gdb/remote.c for details.
1287 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1288 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1289 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1290 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1291 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1292 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1293 sequence is something like
1295 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1297 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1301 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1302 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1303 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1304 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1305 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1306 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1307 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1308 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1312 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1313 but does simplify configuration and building.
1317 GDB now supports hpux10.
1319 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1321 * New native configurations
1323 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1324 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1325 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1326 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1330 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1331 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1332 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1333 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1336 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1338 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1339 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1340 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1341 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1342 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1344 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1346 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1347 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1350 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1352 To execute the command use:
1355 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1356 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1357 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1359 * New `if' and `while' commands
1361 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1362 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1363 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1364 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1365 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1366 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1367 if the expression is zero.
1369 * Fortran source language mode
1371 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1372 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1373 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1374 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1377 * Better HPUX support
1379 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1380 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1381 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1382 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1383 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1389 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1390 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1396 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1397 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1400 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1401 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1403 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1405 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1406 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1407 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1408 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1409 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1410 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1412 * New DOS host serial code
1414 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1415 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1418 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1420 * New "complete" command
1422 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1423 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1425 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1427 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1428 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1430 * Breakpoint hit counts
1432 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1433 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1434 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1435 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1436 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1439 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1441 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1442 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1443 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1445 * Shared library breakpoints
1447 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1448 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1450 * Hardware watchpoints
1452 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1453 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1455 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1459 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1460 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1462 * Improved Irix 5 support
1464 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1466 * Improved HPPA support
1468 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1470 * New native configurations
1472 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1473 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1474 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1475 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1479 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1480 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1483 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1485 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1486 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1490 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1491 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1493 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1495 * Irix 5 is now supported
1499 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1500 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1501 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1502 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1503 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1506 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1508 * User visible changes:
1512 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1513 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1514 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1515 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1516 debugging info for the mips target).
1518 * DEC Alpha native support
1520 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1521 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1522 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1523 Alpha-specific notes.
1525 * Preliminary thread implementation
1527 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1529 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1531 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1532 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1535 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1537 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1538 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1539 call methods, ...etc.
1541 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1543 * User visible changes:
1545 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1546 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1547 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1548 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1550 Filename completion now works.
1552 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1553 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1554 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1556 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1557 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1558 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1559 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1560 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1564 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1565 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1568 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1572 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1573 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1574 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1578 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1579 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1580 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1581 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1582 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1586 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1587 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1588 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1590 * New targets supported
1592 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1593 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1594 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1595 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1596 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1598 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1599 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1600 GO32 memory extender.
1602 * New remote protocols
1604 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1606 * New source languages supported
1608 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1609 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1610 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1613 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1615 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1617 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1618 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1619 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1620 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1621 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1622 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1624 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1626 * Faster and better demangling
1628 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1629 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1630 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1631 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1632 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1633 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1636 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1637 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1638 compiler does not actually implement.
1640 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1642 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1643 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1644 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1645 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1646 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1647 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1650 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1651 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1653 * Improved configure script
1655 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1656 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1657 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1658 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1660 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1661 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1662 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1663 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1664 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1665 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1667 * Documentation improvements
1669 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1670 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1671 before submitting changes.
1673 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1674 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1675 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1676 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1677 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1679 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1680 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1681 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1682 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1683 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1684 around this problem.
1688 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1689 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1690 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1693 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1694 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1696 * New native hosts supported
1698 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1699 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1701 * New targets supported
1703 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1705 * New file formats supported
1707 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1708 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1712 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1714 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1715 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1717 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1718 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1719 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1721 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1722 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1724 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1725 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1726 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1729 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1730 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1731 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1732 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1733 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1735 * Internal improvements
1737 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1738 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1740 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1741 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1742 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1743 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1744 shared code that handles any of them.
1746 * New command line options
1748 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1752 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1753 General Public License.
1755 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1757 * Host/native/target split
1759 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1760 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1761 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1762 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1763 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1765 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1766 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1767 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1768 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1769 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1770 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1771 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1773 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1774 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1775 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1777 * New hosts supported
1779 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1780 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1781 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1783 * New targets supported
1785 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1786 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1788 * New native hosts supported
1790 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1791 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1792 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1794 * New file formats supported
1796 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1797 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1798 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1802 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1803 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1804 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1806 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1808 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1809 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1810 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1811 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1815 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1816 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1817 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1819 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1823 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1824 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1827 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1828 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1830 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1831 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1832 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1833 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1834 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1835 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1837 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1838 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1839 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1840 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1844 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1845 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1846 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1847 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1848 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1850 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1851 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1852 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1853 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1857 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1858 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1859 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1860 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1861 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1862 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1863 each instruction being stepped through.
1865 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1866 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1868 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1869 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1870 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1871 processor with a serial port.
1875 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1876 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1877 supported, and what files each one uses.
1881 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1882 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1883 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1884 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1886 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1887 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1888 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1889 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1893 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1894 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1895 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1896 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1897 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1898 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1900 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1903 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1905 * Better support for C++ function names
1907 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1908 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1909 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1910 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1911 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1913 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1914 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1915 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1916 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1917 for the list of formats.
1919 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1921 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1922 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1923 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1924 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1925 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1926 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1929 * New 'maintenance' command
1931 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1932 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1933 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1935 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1936 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1937 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1938 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1939 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1940 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1942 The following commands are new:
1944 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1945 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1946 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1948 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1950 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1951 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1952 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1953 read after argv processing.
1955 * New hosts supported
1957 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1959 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1961 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1962 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1963 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1964 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1965 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1968 * New targets supported
1970 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1972 * More smarts about finding #include files
1974 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1975 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1976 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1977 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1978 the one that contains your sources.
1980 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1981 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1982 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1984 * Interesting infernals change
1986 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1987 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1988 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1989 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1991 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1993 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1994 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1995 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1997 See the ChangeLog for details.
1999 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2001 * New machines supported (host and target)
2003 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2005 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2007 * New malloc package
2009 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2010 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2011 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2012 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2013 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2014 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2018 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2019 'help info proc' for details.
2021 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2023 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2024 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2027 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2029 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2030 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2031 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2032 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2033 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2034 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2036 * Cross byte order fixes
2038 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2039 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2041 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2043 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2044 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2045 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2046 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2047 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2048 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2049 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2050 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2051 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2052 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2054 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2055 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2056 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2057 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2059 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2060 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2061 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2064 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2066 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2067 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2068 shared across multiple host platforms.
2070 * longjmp() handling
2072 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2073 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2074 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2075 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2079 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2080 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2085 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2086 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2087 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2089 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2091 * New machines supported (host and target)
2093 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2095 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2096 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2098 * New machines supported (target)
2100 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2104 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2105 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2106 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2108 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2109 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2110 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2111 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2112 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2115 * New features for SVR4
2117 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2118 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2119 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2121 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2122 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2123 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2125 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2126 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2128 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2130 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2131 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2132 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2133 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2134 same code linked statically.
2138 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2139 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2140 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2141 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2142 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2143 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2147 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2148 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2149 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2152 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2154 * New machines supported (host and target)
2156 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2157 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2158 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2160 * Almost SCO Unix support
2162 We had hoped to support:
2163 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2164 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2165 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2166 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2168 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2170 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2171 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2172 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2173 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2178 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2179 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2180 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2184 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2185 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2186 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2188 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2190 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2191 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2192 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2194 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2195 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2196 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2197 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2200 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2201 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2202 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2203 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2206 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2207 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2210 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2211 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2212 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2215 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2217 * Improved configuration
2219 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2220 Porting BFD is simpler.
2224 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2225 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2226 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2227 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2231 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2233 * New host supported (not target)
2235 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2238 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2240 * Multiple source language support
2242 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2243 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2244 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2245 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2246 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2247 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2251 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2252 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2253 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2254 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2256 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2257 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2258 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2260 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2261 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2265 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2266 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2267 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2268 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2271 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2273 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2274 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2275 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2276 examining core files.
2280 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2283 * New machines supported (host and target)
2285 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2286 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2287 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2289 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2291 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2293 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2295 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2296 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2297 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2299 * New remote interfaces
2305 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2309 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2311 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2312 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2313 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2314 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2315 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2316 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2317 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2318 stub on the target system.
2320 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2322 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2323 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2324 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2326 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2327 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2330 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2332 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2333 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2335 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2336 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2337 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2339 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2340 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2341 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2342 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2344 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2345 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2346 it is already running. Default is ON.
2348 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2349 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2350 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2351 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2354 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2355 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2356 or the value of the environment variable
2359 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2360 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2363 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2364 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2365 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2367 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2368 history expansion will be performed on
2369 command line input. The default is OFF.
2371 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2372 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2373 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2375 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2376 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2377 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2380 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2381 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2382 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2385 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2386 ``set width'' instead.
2388 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2389 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2390 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2391 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2393 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2396 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2399 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2402 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2405 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2407 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2408 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2409 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2413 * Support for Shared Libraries
2415 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2416 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2417 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2418 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2419 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2420 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2421 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2422 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2424 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2425 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2426 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2428 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2433 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2434 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2435 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2436 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2437 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2438 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2440 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2442 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2444 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2445 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2446 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2449 * C++ multiple inheritance
2451 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2454 * C++ exception handling
2456 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2457 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2458 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2461 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2462 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2463 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2465 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2466 current stack frame.
2469 * Minor command changes
2471 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2472 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2473 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2475 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2476 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2477 frames without printing.
2479 * New directory command
2481 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2482 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2483 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2484 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2485 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2487 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2489 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2492 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2493 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2494 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2495 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob