1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.0:
6 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
8 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
9 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
10 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
11 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
13 * Revised SPARC target
15 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
16 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
17 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped.
21 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
22 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
23 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
26 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
28 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
29 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
32 * New native configurations
34 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
36 * New debugging protocols
38 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
40 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
42 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
43 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
44 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
46 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
48 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
49 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
50 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
53 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
54 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
55 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
56 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
57 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
58 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
59 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
60 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
61 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
63 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
65 * REMOVED configurations and files
67 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
68 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
69 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
70 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
71 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
72 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
73 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
74 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
75 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
76 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
77 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
78 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
79 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
80 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
81 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
82 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
84 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
88 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
91 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
93 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
94 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
95 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
98 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
99 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
104 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
105 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
106 remote protocol documentation for details.
108 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
110 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
111 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
112 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
115 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
117 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
118 per-thread variables.
120 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
122 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
123 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
125 * Separate debug info.
127 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
128 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
129 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
130 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
131 and optional debug files.
133 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
135 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
136 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
139 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
140 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
144 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
145 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
146 considered "useable".
148 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
150 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
151 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
154 * GDB supports logging output to a file
156 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
157 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
159 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
161 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
162 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
165 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
167 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
168 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
172 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
173 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
174 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
175 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
176 data, for more informative profiling results.
178 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
180 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
181 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
182 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
184 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
187 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
188 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
189 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
190 in a subsequent -var-update.
192 * New native configurations.
194 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
196 * Multi-arched targets.
198 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
199 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
201 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
203 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
204 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
205 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
208 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
209 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
210 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
211 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
212 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
213 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
214 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
215 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
216 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
217 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
218 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
219 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
221 * REMOVED configurations and files
224 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
225 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
226 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
227 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
228 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
229 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
231 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
232 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
233 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
234 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
235 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
236 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
238 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
240 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
241 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
242 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
243 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
244 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
246 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
248 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
250 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
251 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
252 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
253 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
254 shared libs like mad''.
256 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
258 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
259 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
260 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
261 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
263 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
265 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
266 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
269 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
270 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
272 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
273 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
275 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
276 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
277 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
278 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
280 * Multi-arched targets.
282 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
283 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
285 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
286 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
287 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
291 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
294 * New native configurations
296 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
297 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
298 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
299 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
301 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
303 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
304 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
305 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
308 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
309 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
310 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
311 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
312 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
313 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
314 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
315 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
316 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
317 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
319 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
320 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
324 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
326 * REMOVED configurations and files
328 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
329 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
330 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
331 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
332 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
334 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
336 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
338 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
339 commands. The default is 1024.
341 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
343 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
345 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
347 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
348 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
349 from a file into memory (restore).
351 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
353 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
354 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
355 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
357 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
365 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
366 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
367 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
369 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
370 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
371 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
373 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
374 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
375 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
377 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
378 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
379 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
381 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
383 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
385 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
386 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
387 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
388 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
389 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
390 (notably embedded) targets.
392 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
394 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
395 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
396 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
397 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
399 * New command line option
401 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
403 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
405 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
406 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
407 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
408 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
409 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
410 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
411 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
412 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
413 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
414 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
416 * Changes in ARM configurations.
418 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
419 configuration is fully multi-arch.
421 * New native configurations
423 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
424 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
425 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
426 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
430 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
432 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
434 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
435 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
436 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
439 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
440 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
441 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
442 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
443 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
445 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
447 * REMOVED configurations and files
449 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
451 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
452 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
453 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
454 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
455 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
456 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
457 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
458 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
459 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
460 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
461 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
463 * Changes to command line processing
465 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
466 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
468 * Changes to key bindings
470 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
472 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
474 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
476 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
479 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
481 Numerous documentation fixes.
483 Numerous testsuite fixes.
485 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
487 * New native configurations
489 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
490 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
491 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
492 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
494 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
498 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
500 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
502 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
504 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
505 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
506 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
507 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
508 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
510 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
511 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
512 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
513 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
514 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
515 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
516 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
517 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
519 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
520 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
522 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
523 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
524 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
527 * REMOVED configurations and files
529 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
530 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
532 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
536 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
538 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
539 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
544 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
546 * The MI enabled by default.
548 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
549 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
550 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
551 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
552 which is now deprecated.
554 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
556 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
557 main features are supported:
559 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
561 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
564 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
566 - a Pascal expression parser.
568 However, some important features are not yet supported.
570 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
572 - there are some problems with boolean types;
574 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
575 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
577 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
579 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
581 * Changes in completion.
583 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
584 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
585 users expect at the shell prompt.
587 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
588 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
589 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
590 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
591 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
592 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
593 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
595 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
597 * New platform-independent commands:
599 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
600 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
601 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
603 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
605 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
606 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
607 many threads as your system allows you to have.
609 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
611 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
612 multi-threaded programs though.
614 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
616 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
618 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
619 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
622 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
624 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
625 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
626 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
627 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
628 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
631 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
632 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
633 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
635 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
637 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
638 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
640 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
641 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
644 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
645 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
646 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
647 a given linear address.
649 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
650 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
651 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
653 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
655 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
657 * Changes in documentation.
659 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
660 Documentation License.
662 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
665 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
667 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
670 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
671 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
672 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
674 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
676 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
677 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
678 contents of this file.
682 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
684 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
686 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
688 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
689 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
690 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
691 greater level of detail.
693 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
695 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
696 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
697 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
700 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
702 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
703 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
704 machines ``out of the box''.
706 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
707 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
708 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
709 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
710 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
712 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
713 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
714 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
715 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
716 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
718 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
719 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
722 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
725 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
726 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
727 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
728 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
730 * New native configurations
732 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
733 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
737 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
738 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
739 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
740 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
742 * OBSOLETE configurations
744 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
745 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
747 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
750 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
751 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
752 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
753 be permanently REMOVED.
755 * Gould support removed
757 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
759 * New features for SVR4
761 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
762 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
763 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
765 * Many C++ enhancements
767 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
768 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
770 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
772 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
773 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
774 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
775 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
777 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
778 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
780 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
782 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
783 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
784 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
786 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
787 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
789 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
791 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
792 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
793 include ``set remote P-packet''.
795 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
797 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
798 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
799 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
801 * ``apropos'' command added.
803 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
804 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
805 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
809 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
810 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
811 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
812 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
813 enabled by configuring with:
815 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
817 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
819 * New native configurations
821 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
822 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
823 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
827 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
828 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
829 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
831 * OBSOLETE configurations
833 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
835 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
836 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
837 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
838 be permanently REMOVED.
842 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
843 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
844 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
845 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
846 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
847 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
848 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
853 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
855 * set extension-language
857 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
858 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
859 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
860 set extension-language .c c++
861 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
862 and their associated languages.
864 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
866 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
867 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
868 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
872 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
873 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
875 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
876 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
878 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
879 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
880 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
881 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
882 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
883 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
884 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
885 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
887 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
888 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
889 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
890 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
894 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
895 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
896 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
897 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
898 for xdb and dbx commands.
902 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
903 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
904 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
906 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
907 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
908 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
910 * Debugging across forks
912 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
917 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
918 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
919 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
921 * GDB remote protocol additions
923 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
924 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
925 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
926 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
928 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
929 full 64-bit address. The command
931 set remoteaddresssize 32
933 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
934 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
937 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
938 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
940 maint packet heythere
942 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
943 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
946 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
947 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
948 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
950 * Tracing can collect general expressions
952 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
953 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
954 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
956 * mask-address variable for Mips
958 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
959 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
960 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
962 * Higher serial baud rates
964 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
965 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
966 to achieve all of these rates.)
970 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
971 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
974 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
976 * New native configurations
978 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
979 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
980 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
981 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
982 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
983 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
984 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
988 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
989 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
990 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
991 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
992 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
993 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
994 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
995 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
996 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
997 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
998 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1000 * New debugging protocols
1002 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1003 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1004 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1005 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1006 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1007 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1011 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1012 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1017 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1018 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1020 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1022 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1023 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1024 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1026 * Live range splitting
1028 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1029 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1030 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1034 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1035 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1039 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1040 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1041 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1046 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1051 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1052 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1053 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1054 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1055 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1056 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1060 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1061 the symbol at the specified address.
1065 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1066 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1067 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1068 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1069 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1073 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1074 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1075 of most MIPS variants.
1079 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1080 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1081 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1085 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1086 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1087 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1088 the possible architectures.
1090 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1092 * New native configurations
1094 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1095 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1096 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1097 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1098 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1099 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1103 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1104 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1105 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1106 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1107 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1109 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1113 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1114 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1115 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1116 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1117 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1121 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1123 * Windows 95/NT native
1125 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1126 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1127 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1128 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1129 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1131 * dont-repeat command
1133 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1134 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1135 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1136 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1138 * Send break instead of ^C
1140 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1141 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1142 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1144 * Remote protocol timeout
1146 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1147 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1148 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1150 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1152 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1153 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1154 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1155 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1156 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1158 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1159 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1160 automatically on hpux10.
1162 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1164 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1166 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1168 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1169 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1170 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1171 every character. The default value is 1050.
1173 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1175 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1176 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1177 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1178 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1179 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1180 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1182 * Speedups for remote debugging
1184 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1185 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1186 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1188 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1190 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1191 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1193 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1195 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1197 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1198 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1200 * Remote targets use caching
1202 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1203 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1204 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1205 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1206 off' turns the the data cache off.
1208 * Remote targets may have threads
1210 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1211 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1212 gdb/remote.c for details.
1216 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1217 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1218 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1219 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1220 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1221 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1222 sequence is something like
1224 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1226 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1230 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1231 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1232 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1233 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1234 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1235 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1236 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1237 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1241 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1242 but does simplify configuration and building.
1246 GDB now supports hpux10.
1248 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1250 * New native configurations
1252 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1253 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1254 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1255 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1259 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1260 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1261 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1262 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1265 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1267 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1268 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1269 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1270 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1271 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1273 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1275 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1276 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1279 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1281 To execute the command use:
1284 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1285 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1286 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1288 * New `if' and `while' commands
1290 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1291 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1292 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1293 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1294 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1295 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1296 if the expression is zero.
1298 * Fortran source language mode
1300 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1301 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1302 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1303 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1306 * Better HPUX support
1308 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1309 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1310 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1311 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1312 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1318 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1319 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1325 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1326 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1329 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1330 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1332 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1334 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1335 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1336 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1337 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1338 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1339 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1341 * New DOS host serial code
1343 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1344 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1347 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1349 * New "complete" command
1351 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1352 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1354 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1356 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1357 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1359 * Breakpoint hit counts
1361 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1362 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1363 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1364 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1365 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1368 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1370 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1371 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1372 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1374 * Shared library breakpoints
1376 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1377 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1379 * Hardware watchpoints
1381 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1382 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1384 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1388 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1389 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1391 * Improved Irix 5 support
1393 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1395 * Improved HPPA support
1397 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1399 * New native configurations
1401 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1402 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1403 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1404 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1408 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1409 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1412 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1414 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1415 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1419 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1420 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1422 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1424 * Irix 5 is now supported
1428 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1429 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1430 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1431 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1432 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1435 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1437 * User visible changes:
1441 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1442 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1443 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1444 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1445 debugging info for the mips target).
1447 * DEC Alpha native support
1449 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1450 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1451 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1452 Alpha-specific notes.
1454 * Preliminary thread implementation
1456 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1458 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1460 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1461 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1464 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1466 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1467 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1468 call methods, ...etc.
1470 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1472 * User visible changes:
1474 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1475 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1476 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1477 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1479 Filename completion now works.
1481 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1482 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1483 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1485 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1486 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1487 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1488 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1489 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1493 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1494 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1497 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1501 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1502 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1503 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1507 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1508 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1509 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1510 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1511 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1515 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1516 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1517 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1519 * New targets supported
1521 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1522 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1523 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1524 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1525 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1527 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1528 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1529 GO32 memory extender.
1531 * New remote protocols
1533 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1535 * New source languages supported
1537 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1538 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1539 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1542 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1544 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1546 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1547 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1548 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1549 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1550 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1551 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1553 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1555 * Faster and better demangling
1557 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1558 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1559 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1560 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1561 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1562 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1565 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1566 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1567 compiler does not actually implement.
1569 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1571 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1572 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1573 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1574 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1575 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1576 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1579 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1580 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1582 * Improved configure script
1584 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1585 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1586 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1587 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1589 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1590 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1591 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1592 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1593 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1594 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1596 * Documentation improvements
1598 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1599 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1600 before submitting changes.
1602 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1603 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1604 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1605 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1606 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1608 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1609 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1610 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1611 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1612 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1613 around this problem.
1617 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1618 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1619 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1622 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1623 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1625 * New native hosts supported
1627 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1628 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1630 * New targets supported
1632 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1634 * New file formats supported
1636 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1637 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1641 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1643 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1644 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1646 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1647 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1648 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1650 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1651 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1653 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1654 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1655 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1658 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1659 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1660 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1661 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1662 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1664 * Internal improvements
1666 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1667 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1669 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1670 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1671 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1672 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1673 shared code that handles any of them.
1675 * New command line options
1677 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1681 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1682 General Public License.
1684 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1686 * Host/native/target split
1688 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1689 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1690 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1691 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1692 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1694 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1695 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1696 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1697 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1698 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1699 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1700 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1702 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1703 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1704 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1706 * New hosts supported
1708 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1709 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1710 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1712 * New targets supported
1714 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1715 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1717 * New native hosts supported
1719 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1720 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1721 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1723 * New file formats supported
1725 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1726 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1727 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1731 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1732 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1733 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1735 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1737 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1738 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1739 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1740 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1744 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1745 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1746 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1748 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1752 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1753 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1756 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1757 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1759 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1760 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1761 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1762 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1763 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1764 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1766 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1767 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1768 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1769 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1773 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1774 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1775 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1776 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1777 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1779 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1780 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1781 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1782 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1786 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1787 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1788 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1789 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1790 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1791 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1792 each instruction being stepped through.
1794 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1795 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1797 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1798 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1799 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1800 processor with a serial port.
1804 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1805 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1806 supported, and what files each one uses.
1810 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1811 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1812 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1813 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1815 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1816 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1817 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1818 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1822 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1823 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1824 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1825 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1826 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1827 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1829 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1832 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1834 * Better support for C++ function names
1836 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1837 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1838 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1839 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1840 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1842 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1843 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1844 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1845 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1846 for the list of formats.
1848 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1850 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1851 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1852 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1853 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1854 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1855 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1858 * New 'maintenance' command
1860 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1861 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1862 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1864 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1865 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1866 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1867 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1868 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1869 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1871 The following commands are new:
1873 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1874 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1875 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1877 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1879 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1880 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1881 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1882 read after argv processing.
1884 * New hosts supported
1886 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1888 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1890 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1891 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1892 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1893 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1894 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1897 * New targets supported
1899 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1901 * More smarts about finding #include files
1903 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1904 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1905 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1906 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1907 the one that contains your sources.
1909 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1910 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1911 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1913 * Interesting infernals change
1915 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1916 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1917 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1918 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1920 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1922 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1923 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1924 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1926 See the ChangeLog for details.
1928 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1930 * New machines supported (host and target)
1932 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1934 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1936 * New malloc package
1938 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1939 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1940 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1941 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1942 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1943 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1947 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1948 'help info proc' for details.
1950 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1952 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1953 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1956 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1958 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1959 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1960 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1961 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1962 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1963 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1965 * Cross byte order fixes
1967 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1968 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1970 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1972 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1973 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1974 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1975 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1976 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1977 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1978 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1979 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1980 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1981 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1983 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1984 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1985 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1986 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1988 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1989 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1990 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1993 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1995 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1996 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1997 shared across multiple host platforms.
1999 * longjmp() handling
2001 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2002 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2003 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2004 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2008 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2009 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2014 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2015 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2016 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2018 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2020 * New machines supported (host and target)
2022 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2024 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2025 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2027 * New machines supported (target)
2029 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2033 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2034 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2035 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2037 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2038 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2039 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2040 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2041 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2044 * New features for SVR4
2046 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2047 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2048 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2050 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2051 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2052 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2054 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2055 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2057 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2059 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2060 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2061 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2062 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2063 same code linked statically.
2067 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2068 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2069 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2070 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2071 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2072 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2076 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2077 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2078 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2081 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2083 * New machines supported (host and target)
2085 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2086 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2087 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2089 * Almost SCO Unix support
2091 We had hoped to support:
2092 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2093 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2094 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2095 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2097 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2099 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2100 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2101 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2102 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2107 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2108 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2109 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2113 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2114 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2115 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2117 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2119 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2120 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2121 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2123 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2124 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2125 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2126 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2129 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2130 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2131 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2132 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2135 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2136 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2139 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2140 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2141 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2144 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2146 * Improved configuration
2148 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2149 Porting BFD is simpler.
2153 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2154 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2155 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2156 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2160 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2162 * New host supported (not target)
2164 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2167 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2169 * Multiple source language support
2171 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2172 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2173 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2174 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2175 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2176 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2180 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2181 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2182 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2183 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2185 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2186 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2187 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2189 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2190 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2194 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2195 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2196 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2197 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2200 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2202 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2203 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2204 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2205 examining core files.
2209 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2212 * New machines supported (host and target)
2214 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2215 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2216 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2218 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2220 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2222 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2224 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2225 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2226 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2228 * New remote interfaces
2234 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2238 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2240 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2241 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2242 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2243 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2244 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2245 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2246 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2247 stub on the target system.
2249 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2251 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2252 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2253 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2255 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2256 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2259 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2261 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2262 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2264 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2265 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2266 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2268 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2269 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2270 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2271 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2273 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2274 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2275 it is already running. Default is ON.
2277 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2278 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2279 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2280 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2283 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2284 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2285 or the value of the environment variable
2288 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2289 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2292 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2293 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2294 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2296 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2297 history expansion will be performed on
2298 command line input. The default is OFF.
2300 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2301 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2302 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2304 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2305 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2306 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2309 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2310 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2311 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2314 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2315 ``set width'' instead.
2317 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2318 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2319 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2320 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2322 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2325 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2328 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2331 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2334 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2336 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2337 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2338 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2342 * Support for Shared Libraries
2344 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2345 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2346 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2347 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2348 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2349 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2350 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2351 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2353 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2354 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2355 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2357 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2362 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2363 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2364 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2365 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2366 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2367 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2369 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2371 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2373 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2374 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2375 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2378 * C++ multiple inheritance
2380 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2383 * C++ exception handling
2385 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2386 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2387 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2390 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2391 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2392 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2394 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2395 current stack frame.
2398 * Minor command changes
2400 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2401 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2402 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2404 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2405 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2406 frames without printing.
2408 * New directory command
2410 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2411 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2412 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2413 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2414 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2416 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2418 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2421 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2422 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2423 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2424 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob