1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.1
6 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
7 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
10 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
12 - GDBserver now support tracepoints. The feature is currently
13 supported by the i386-linux and amd64-linux builds.
15 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
16 it understands register description.
18 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
20 * X86 general purpose registers
22 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
23 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
24 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
25 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
26 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
28 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
29 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
30 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
31 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
32 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
33 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
37 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
38 tables, and frame's code blocks.
40 ** New methods gdb.target_charset and gdb.target_wide_charset.
42 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
43 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
44 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
49 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
51 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
57 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
58 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
59 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
60 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
61 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
65 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
66 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
71 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
72 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
76 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
81 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
84 * Multi-program debugging.
86 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
87 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
88 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
89 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
90 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
91 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
92 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
93 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
95 * New tracing features
97 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
99 ** Trace state variables
101 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
102 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
103 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
104 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
105 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
106 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
107 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
108 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
109 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
110 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
114 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
115 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
116 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
117 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
118 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
119 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
120 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
121 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
122 the regular trace command.
124 ** Disconnected tracing
126 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
127 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
128 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
129 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
130 connection is lost unexpectedly.
134 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
135 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
136 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
137 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
138 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
139 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
142 ** Circular trace buffer
144 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
145 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
146 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
147 not be available for all target agents.
152 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
153 the arguments to be comma-separated.
156 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
157 which only declare a variable are not shown.
160 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
161 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
164 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
165 "set script-extension" (see below).
167 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
169 record save [<FILENAME>]
170 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
171 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
173 record restore <FILENAME>
174 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
175 earlier time, for replay debugging.
177 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
180 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
181 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
187 maint info program-spaces
188 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
190 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
191 show remote interrupt-sequence
192 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
193 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
194 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
195 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
196 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
198 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
199 show remote interrupt-on-connect
200 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
201 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
204 set remotebreak [on | off]
206 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
208 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
209 Create or modify a trace state variable.
212 List trace state variables and their values.
214 delete tvariable $NAME ...
215 Delete one or more trace state variables.
218 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
219 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
221 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
222 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
224 * New expression syntax
226 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
227 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
231 set follow-exec-mode new|same
232 show follow-exec-mode
233 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
234 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
235 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
237 set default-collect EXPR, ...
239 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
240 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
241 such as registers or a critical global variable.
243 set disconnected-tracing
244 show disconnected-tracing
245 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
246 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
249 set circular-trace-buffer
250 show circular-trace-buffer
251 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
252 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
253 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
254 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
256 set script-extension off|soft|strict
257 show script-extension
258 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
259 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
260 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
261 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
263 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
265 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
266 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
267 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
268 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
269 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
270 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
271 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
274 * Python API Improvements
276 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
277 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
278 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
280 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
281 `is_base_class' attribute.
283 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
285 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
286 evaluate an expression.
291 Define a trace state variable.
294 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
297 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
300 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
303 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
307 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
309 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
310 much more reliable. In particular:
311 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
312 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
313 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
314 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
315 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
316 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
317 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
318 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
319 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
320 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
321 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
322 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
323 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
324 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
325 non-threaded programs.
327 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
328 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
329 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
332 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
334 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
335 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
336 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
337 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
338 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
340 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
341 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
342 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
343 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
344 for tracepoint actions.
346 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
347 in hex as well as in symbolic form.
349 * Process record and replay
351 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
352 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
353 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
356 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
357 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
358 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
361 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
362 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
365 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
366 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
367 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
368 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
369 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
370 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
371 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
372 the installation instructions for more information.
374 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
375 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
376 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
377 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
379 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
380 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
382 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
383 now complete on file names.
385 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
386 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
387 For instance, consider:
389 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
390 # struct example variable;
393 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
394 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
396 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
397 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
399 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
400 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
403 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
404 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
405 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
407 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
408 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
409 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
410 and simulator targets may also provide them.
415 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
418 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
419 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
420 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
423 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
424 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
427 Obtains additional operating system information
431 Read or write additional signal information.
433 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
435 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
436 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
437 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
439 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
442 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
443 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
445 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
446 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
447 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
449 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
450 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
452 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
454 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
456 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
457 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
459 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
460 list of section offsets.
462 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
463 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
464 have also been fixed.
466 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
467 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
468 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
470 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
473 template<typename T> class C { };
476 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
478 ptype C<char const *>
480 ptype C<const char *>
483 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
485 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
486 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
488 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
489 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
490 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
492 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
493 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
495 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
498 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
499 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
501 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
502 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
507 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
508 available is determined at configure time.
510 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
512 * Ada tasking support
514 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
518 Print the list of Ada tasks.
520 Print detailed information about task number N.
522 Print the task number of the current task.
524 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
526 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
527 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
529 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
531 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
532 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
533 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
534 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
535 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
536 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
539 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
540 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
543 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
544 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
545 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
546 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
549 * Multi-architecture debugging.
551 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
552 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
553 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
554 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
555 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
557 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
558 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
559 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
560 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
561 --enable-targets configure option.
563 * Non-stop mode debugging.
565 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
566 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
567 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
568 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
569 section in the user manual for more information.
571 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
572 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
573 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
574 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
575 extensions on linux targets.
577 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
579 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
580 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
581 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
582 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
583 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
584 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
585 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
586 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
587 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
589 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
591 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
593 maint set python print-stack
594 maint show python print-stack
595 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
598 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
603 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
607 Show operating system information about processes.
610 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
613 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
616 Detach from inferior number NUM.
619 Kill inferior number NUM.
624 show spu stop-on-load
625 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
627 set spu auto-flush-cache
628 show spu auto-flush-cache
629 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
630 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
632 set sh calling-convention
633 show sh calling-convention
634 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
638 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
640 set disassemble-next-line
641 show disassemble-next-line
642 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
645 set remote noack-packet
646 show remote noack-packet
647 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
648 under "New remote packets."
650 set remote query-attached-packet
651 show remote query-attached-packet
652 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
654 set remote read-siginfo-object
655 show remote read-siginfo-object
656 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
659 set remote write-siginfo-object
660 show remote write-siginfo-object
661 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
664 set remote reverse-continue
665 show remote reverse-continue
666 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
668 set remote reverse-step
669 show remote reverse-step
670 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
672 set displaced-stepping
673 show displaced-stepping
674 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
675 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
676 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
680 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
682 maint set internal-error
683 maint show internal-error
684 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
686 maint set internal-warning
687 maint show internal-warning
688 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
693 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
695 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
696 show multiple-symbols
697 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
698 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
699 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
701 set breakpoint always-inserted
702 show breakpoint always-inserted
703 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
704 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
705 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
707 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
708 show arm fallback-mode
709 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
711 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
712 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
713 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
714 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
716 set disable-randomization
717 show disable-randomization
718 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
719 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
720 multiple debugging sessions.
724 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
729 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
730 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
731 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
732 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
734 set target-wide-charset
735 show target-wide-charset
736 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
737 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
739 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
741 set tcp connect-timeout
742 show tcp connect-timeout
743 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
744 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
745 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
747 set libthread-db-search-path
748 show libthread-db-search-path
749 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
752 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
753 show schedule-multiple
754 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
759 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
760 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
761 affecting correctness.
763 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
764 show interactive-mode
765 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
766 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
767 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
768 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
769 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
774 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
775 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
776 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
780 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
781 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
782 alias for the `fork' command.
785 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
786 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
787 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
790 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
791 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
792 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
796 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
797 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
798 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
801 * New native configurations
803 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
805 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
809 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
810 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
811 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
814 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
815 (mingw32ce) debugging.
821 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
823 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
825 * New native configurations
827 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
828 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
832 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
833 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
835 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
837 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
838 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
839 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
840 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
842 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
843 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
845 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
848 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
849 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
850 and in inlined functions.
852 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
853 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
854 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
856 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
858 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
859 registers on PowerPC targets.
861 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
862 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
864 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
865 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
867 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
868 extended-remote mode.
870 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
871 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
872 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
873 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
875 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
876 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
877 target architectures.
879 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
880 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
881 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
882 stored in two consecutive float registers.
884 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
887 * Improved support for debugging Ada
888 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
890 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
891 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
892 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
893 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
895 - Improved command completion in Ada
898 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
903 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
904 show print frame-arguments
905 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
906 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
911 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
918 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
927 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
930 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
934 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
936 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
938 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
939 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
940 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
942 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
943 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
944 -Bsymbolic linker option.
946 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
947 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
950 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
951 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
953 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
954 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
956 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
958 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
959 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
960 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
962 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
963 automatically displayed as character or string data.
965 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
966 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
969 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
970 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
971 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
973 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
976 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
977 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
978 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
980 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
982 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
984 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
985 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
986 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
988 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
989 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
991 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
992 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
993 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
994 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
995 Windows and SymbianOS).
997 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
998 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1000 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1001 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1007 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1008 when debugging using remote targets.
1010 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1011 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1012 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1013 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1014 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1015 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1016 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1018 set breakpoint auto-hw
1019 show breakpoint auto-hw
1020 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1021 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1022 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1023 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1024 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1025 including "next" and "finish".
1028 catch exception unhandled
1029 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1032 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1036 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1037 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1038 an alias to "set sysroot".
1041 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1042 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1045 * New native configurations
1047 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1050 unset tdesc filename
1052 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1053 not query the target for its built-in description.
1057 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1058 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1059 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1061 * New remote packets
1064 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1065 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1067 qXfer:features:read:
1068 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1073 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1074 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1076 qXfer:libraries:read:
1077 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1078 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1079 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1080 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1084 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1092 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1093 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1094 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1095 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1097 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1100 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1101 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1110 * Other removed features
1117 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1124 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1129 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1130 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1135 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1136 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1138 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1140 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1141 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1142 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1143 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1145 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1147 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1148 in debugging information.
1152 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1153 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1155 set mips stack-arg-size
1156 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1158 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1160 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1165 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1167 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1168 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1169 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1171 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1172 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1175 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1176 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1178 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1179 stub provides the required support.
1181 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1182 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1187 unset substitute-path
1188 show substitute-path
1189 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1190 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1191 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1192 between compilation and debugging.
1196 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1197 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1198 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1202 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1204 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1205 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1207 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1209 * New remote packets
1212 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1213 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1214 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1215 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1219 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1220 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1222 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1223 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1224 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1229 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1231 * Removed remote packets
1234 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1235 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1237 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1241 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1243 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1247 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1248 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1250 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1252 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1254 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1255 previously saved state.
1257 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1259 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1261 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1262 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1264 info forks List forks of the user program that
1265 are available to be debugged.
1267 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1268 forks of the user program that are
1269 available to be debugged.
1271 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1272 that are available to be debugged (and
1273 kill the forked process).
1275 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1276 that are available to be debugged (and
1277 allow the process to continue).
1281 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1283 * Improved Windows host support
1285 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1286 native console support, and remote communications using either
1287 network sockets or serial ports.
1289 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1291 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1292 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1293 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1294 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1295 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1296 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1300 The ARM rdi-share module.
1302 The Netware NLM debug server.
1304 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1306 * New native configurations
1308 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1309 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1313 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1315 * New command line options
1317 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1318 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1319 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1320 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1321 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1322 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1323 with the --command (-x) option.
1325 * Deprecated commands removed
1327 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1331 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1332 othernames set arm disassembler
1333 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1334 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1335 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1338 * New BSD user-level threads support
1340 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1341 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1344 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1345 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1346 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1348 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1349 are not yet supported.
1351 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1352 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1354 * REMOVED configurations and files
1356 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1357 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1358 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1360 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1362 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1363 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1366 * VAX floating point support
1368 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1370 * User-defined command support
1372 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1373 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1374 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1376 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1378 * New command line option
1380 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1383 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1385 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1386 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1387 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1388 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1389 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1391 * Internationalization
1393 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1394 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1395 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1399 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1400 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1401 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1403 * New native configurations
1405 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1409 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1410 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1412 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1414 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1415 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1416 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1419 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1420 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1421 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1431 powerpc bdm protocol
1433 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1434 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1436 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1438 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1439 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1440 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1441 permanently REMOVED.
1450 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1452 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1454 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1455 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1458 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1460 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1461 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1462 IRIX long double values).
1466 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1467 command. This problem has been fixed.
1469 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1471 * Fix for ``many threads''
1473 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1474 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1477 ptrace: No such process.
1478 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1480 This problem has been fixed.
1482 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1484 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1487 * New ``start'' command.
1489 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1491 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1493 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1494 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1495 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1497 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1498 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1499 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1500 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1501 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1502 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1503 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1504 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1505 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1507 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1509 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1510 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1511 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1512 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1513 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1515 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1516 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1517 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1519 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1521 * New native configurations
1523 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1524 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1525 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1526 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1527 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1528 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1529 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1531 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1533 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1534 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1535 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1536 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1537 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1538 work, was also included.
1540 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1541 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1551 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1552 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1554 * REMOVED configurations and files
1556 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1557 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1558 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1559 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1560 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1561 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1562 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1563 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1564 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1565 sonymips mips-sony-*
1566 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1568 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1570 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1572 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1573 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1574 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1575 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1578 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1580 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1581 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1582 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1583 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1584 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1585 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1588 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1590 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1592 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1593 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1594 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1596 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1598 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1599 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1601 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1603 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1604 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1605 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1607 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1609 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1610 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1612 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1614 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1615 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1616 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1618 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1620 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1621 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1622 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1624 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1626 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1628 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1629 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1631 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1633 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1634 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1635 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1636 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1638 * Revised SPARC target
1640 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1641 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1642 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1643 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1644 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1648 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1649 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1650 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1653 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1655 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1656 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1659 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1661 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1662 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1663 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1664 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1665 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1666 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1667 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1668 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1669 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1671 * New native configurations
1673 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1674 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1675 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1676 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1677 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1679 * New debugging protocols
1681 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1683 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1685 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1686 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1687 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1689 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1691 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1692 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1693 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1694 permanently REMOVED.
1696 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1697 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1698 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1699 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1700 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1701 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1702 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1703 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1704 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1705 sonymips mips-sony-*
1706 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1708 * REMOVED configurations and files
1710 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1711 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1712 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1713 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1714 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1715 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1716 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1717 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1718 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1719 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1720 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1721 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1722 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1723 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1724 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1725 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1726 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1728 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1732 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1733 integrated into GDB.
1735 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1737 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1738 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1739 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1742 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1743 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1744 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1748 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1749 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1750 remote protocol documentation for details.
1752 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1754 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1755 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1756 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1759 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1761 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1762 per-thread variables.
1764 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1766 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1767 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1769 * Separate debug info.
1771 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1772 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1773 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1774 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1775 and optional debug files.
1777 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1779 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1780 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1783 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1784 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1788 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1789 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1790 considered "useable".
1792 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1794 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1795 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1798 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1800 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1801 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1803 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1805 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1806 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1809 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1811 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1812 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1816 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1817 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1818 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1819 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1820 data, for more informative profiling results.
1822 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1824 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1825 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1826 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1828 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1831 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1832 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1833 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1834 in a subsequent -var-update.
1836 * New native configurations.
1838 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1840 * Multi-arched targets.
1842 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1843 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1845 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1847 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1848 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1849 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1850 permanently REMOVED.
1852 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1853 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1854 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1855 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1856 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1857 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1858 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1859 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1860 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1861 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1862 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1863 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1865 * REMOVED configurations and files
1868 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1869 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1870 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1871 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1872 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1873 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1875 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1876 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1877 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1878 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1879 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1880 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1882 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1884 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1885 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1886 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1887 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1888 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1890 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1892 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1894 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1895 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1896 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1897 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1898 shared libs like mad''.
1900 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1902 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1903 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1904 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1905 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1907 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1909 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1910 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1913 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1914 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1916 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1917 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1919 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1920 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1921 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1922 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1924 * Multi-arched targets.
1926 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1927 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1929 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1930 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1931 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1935 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1938 * New native configurations
1940 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1941 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1942 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1943 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1945 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1947 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1948 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1949 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1950 permanently REMOVED.
1952 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1953 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1954 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1955 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1956 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1957 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1958 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1959 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1960 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1961 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1963 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1964 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1966 * OBSOLETE languages
1968 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1970 * REMOVED configurations and files
1972 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1973 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1974 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1975 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1976 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1978 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1980 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1982 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1983 commands. The default is 1024.
1985 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1987 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1989 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1991 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1992 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1993 from a file into memory (restore).
1995 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1997 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1998 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1999 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2001 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2009 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2010 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2011 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2013 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2014 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2015 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2017 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2018 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2019 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2021 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2022 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2023 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2025 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2027 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2029 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2030 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2031 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2032 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2033 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2034 (notably embedded) targets.
2036 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2038 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2039 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2040 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2041 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2043 * New command line option
2045 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2047 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2049 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2050 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2051 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2052 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2053 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2054 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2055 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2056 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2057 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2058 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2060 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2062 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2063 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2065 * New native configurations
2067 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2068 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2069 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2070 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2074 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2076 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2078 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2079 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2080 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2081 permanently REMOVED.
2083 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2084 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2085 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2086 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2087 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2089 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2091 * REMOVED configurations and files
2093 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2095 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2096 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2097 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2098 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2099 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2100 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2101 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2102 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2103 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2104 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2105 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2107 * Changes to command line processing
2109 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2110 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2112 * Changes to key bindings
2114 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2116 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2118 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2120 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2123 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2125 Numerous documentation fixes.
2127 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2129 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2131 * New native configurations
2133 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2134 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2135 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2136 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2137 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2138 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2142 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2144 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2146 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2148 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2149 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2150 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2151 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2152 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2154 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2155 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2156 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2157 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2158 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2159 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2160 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2161 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2163 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2164 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2166 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2167 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2168 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2169 permanently REMOVED.
2171 * REMOVED configurations and files
2173 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2174 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2176 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2180 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2182 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2183 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2188 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2190 * The MI enabled by default.
2192 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2193 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2194 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2195 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2196 which is now deprecated.
2198 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2200 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2201 main features are supported:
2203 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2205 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2208 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2210 - a Pascal expression parser.
2212 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2214 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2216 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2218 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2219 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2221 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2223 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2225 * Changes in completion.
2227 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2228 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2229 users expect at the shell prompt.
2231 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2232 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2233 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2234 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2235 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2236 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2237 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2239 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2241 * New platform-independent commands:
2243 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2244 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2245 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2247 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2249 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2250 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2251 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2253 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2255 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2256 multi-threaded programs though.
2258 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2260 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2262 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2263 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2266 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2268 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2269 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2270 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2271 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2272 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2275 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2276 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2277 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2279 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2281 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2282 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2284 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2285 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2288 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2289 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2290 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2291 a given linear address.
2293 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2294 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2295 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2297 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2299 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2301 * Changes in documentation.
2303 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2304 Documentation License.
2306 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2309 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2311 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2314 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2315 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2316 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2318 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2320 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2321 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2322 contents of this file.
2326 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2328 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2330 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2332 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2333 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2334 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2335 greater level of detail.
2337 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2339 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2340 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2341 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2344 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2346 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2347 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2348 machines ``out of the box''.
2350 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2351 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2352 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2353 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2354 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2356 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2357 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2358 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2359 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2360 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2362 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2363 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2366 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2369 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2370 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2371 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2372 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2374 * New native configurations
2376 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2377 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2381 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2382 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2383 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2384 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2386 * OBSOLETE configurations
2388 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2389 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2391 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2394 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2395 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2396 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2397 be permanently REMOVED.
2399 * Gould support removed
2401 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2403 * New features for SVR4
2405 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2406 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2407 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2409 * Many C++ enhancements
2411 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2412 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2414 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2416 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2417 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2418 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2419 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2421 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2422 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2424 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2426 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2427 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2428 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2430 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2431 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2433 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2435 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2436 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2437 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2439 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2441 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2442 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2443 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2445 * ``apropos'' command added.
2447 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2448 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2449 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2453 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2454 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2455 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2456 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2457 enabled by configuring with:
2459 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2461 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2463 * New native configurations
2465 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2466 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2467 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2471 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2472 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2473 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2475 * OBSOLETE configurations
2477 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2479 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2480 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2481 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2482 be permanently REMOVED.
2486 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2487 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2488 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2489 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2490 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2491 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2492 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2497 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2499 * set extension-language
2501 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2502 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2503 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2504 set extension-language .c c++
2505 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2506 and their associated languages.
2508 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2510 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2511 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2512 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2516 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2517 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2519 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2520 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2522 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2523 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2524 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2525 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2526 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2527 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2528 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2529 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2531 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2532 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2533 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2534 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2538 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2539 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2540 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2541 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2542 for xdb and dbx commands.
2546 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2547 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2548 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2550 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2551 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2552 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2554 * Debugging across forks
2556 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2561 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2562 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2563 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2565 * GDB remote protocol additions
2567 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2568 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2569 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2570 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2572 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2573 full 64-bit address. The command
2575 set remoteaddresssize 32
2577 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2578 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2581 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2582 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2584 maint packet heythere
2586 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2587 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2590 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2591 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2592 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2594 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2596 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2597 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2598 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2600 * mask-address variable for Mips
2602 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2603 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2604 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2606 * Higher serial baud rates
2608 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2609 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2610 to achieve all of these rates.)
2614 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2615 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2618 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2620 * New native configurations
2622 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2623 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2624 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2625 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2626 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2627 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2628 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2632 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2633 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2634 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2635 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2636 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2637 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2638 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2639 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2640 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2641 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2642 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2644 * New debugging protocols
2646 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2647 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2648 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2649 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2650 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2651 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2655 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2656 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2661 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2662 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2664 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2666 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2667 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2668 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2670 * Live range splitting
2672 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2673 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2674 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2678 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2679 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2683 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2684 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2685 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2690 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2695 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2696 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2697 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2698 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2699 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2700 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2704 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2705 the symbol at the specified address.
2709 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2710 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2711 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2712 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2713 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2717 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2718 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2719 of most MIPS variants.
2723 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2724 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2725 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2729 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2730 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2731 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2732 the possible architectures.
2734 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2736 * New native configurations
2738 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2739 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2740 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2741 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2742 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2743 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2747 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2748 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2749 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2750 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2751 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2753 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2757 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2758 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2759 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2760 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2761 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2765 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2767 * Windows 95/NT native
2769 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2770 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2771 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2772 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2773 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2775 * dont-repeat command
2777 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2778 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2779 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2780 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2782 * Send break instead of ^C
2784 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2785 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2786 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2788 * Remote protocol timeout
2790 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2791 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2792 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2794 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2796 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2797 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2798 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2799 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2800 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2802 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2803 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2804 automatically on hpux10.
2806 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2808 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2810 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2812 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2813 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2814 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2815 every character. The default value is 1050.
2817 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2819 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2820 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2821 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2822 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2823 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2824 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2826 * Speedups for remote debugging
2828 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2829 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2830 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2832 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2834 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2835 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2837 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2839 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2841 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2842 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2844 * Remote targets use caching
2846 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2847 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2848 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2849 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2850 off' turns the the data cache off.
2852 * Remote targets may have threads
2854 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2855 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2856 gdb/remote.c for details.
2860 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2861 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2862 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2863 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2864 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2865 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2866 sequence is something like
2868 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2870 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2874 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2875 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2876 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2877 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2878 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2879 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2880 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2881 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2885 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2886 but does simplify configuration and building.
2890 GDB now supports hpux10.
2892 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2894 * New native configurations
2896 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2897 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2898 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2899 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2903 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2904 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2905 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2906 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2909 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2911 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2912 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2913 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2914 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2915 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2917 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2919 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2920 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2923 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2925 To execute the command use:
2928 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2929 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2930 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2932 * New `if' and `while' commands
2934 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2935 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2936 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2937 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2938 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2939 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2940 if the expression is zero.
2942 * Fortran source language mode
2944 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2945 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2946 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2947 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2950 * Better HPUX support
2952 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2953 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2954 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2955 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2956 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2962 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2963 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2969 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2970 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2973 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2974 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2976 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2978 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2979 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2980 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2981 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2982 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2983 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2985 * New DOS host serial code
2987 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2988 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2991 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2993 * New "complete" command
2995 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2996 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2998 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3000 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3001 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3003 * Breakpoint hit counts
3005 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3006 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3007 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3008 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3009 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3012 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3014 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3015 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3016 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3018 * Shared library breakpoints
3020 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3021 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3023 * Hardware watchpoints
3025 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3026 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3028 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3032 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3033 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3035 * Improved Irix 5 support
3037 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3039 * Improved HPPA support
3041 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3043 * New native configurations
3045 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3046 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3047 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3048 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3052 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3053 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3056 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3058 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3059 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3063 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3064 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3066 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3068 * Irix 5 is now supported
3072 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3073 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3074 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3075 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3076 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3079 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3081 * User visible changes:
3085 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3086 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3087 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3088 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3089 debugging info for the mips target).
3091 * DEC Alpha native support
3093 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3094 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3095 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3096 Alpha-specific notes.
3098 * Preliminary thread implementation
3100 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3102 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3104 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3105 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3108 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3110 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3111 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3112 call methods, ...etc.
3114 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3116 * User visible changes:
3118 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3119 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3120 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3121 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3123 Filename completion now works.
3125 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3126 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3127 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3129 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3130 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3131 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3132 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3133 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3137 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3138 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3141 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3145 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3146 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3147 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3151 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3152 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3153 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3154 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3155 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3159 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3160 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3161 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3163 * New targets supported
3165 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3166 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3167 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3168 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3169 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3171 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3172 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3173 GO32 memory extender.
3175 * New remote protocols
3177 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3179 * New source languages supported
3181 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3182 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3183 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3186 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3188 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3190 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3191 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3192 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3193 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3194 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3195 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3197 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3199 * Faster and better demangling
3201 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3202 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3203 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3204 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3205 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3206 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3209 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3210 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3211 compiler does not actually implement.
3213 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3215 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3216 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3217 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3218 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3219 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3220 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3223 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3224 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3226 * Improved configure script
3228 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3229 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3230 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3231 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3233 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3234 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3235 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3236 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3237 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3238 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3240 * Documentation improvements
3242 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3243 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3244 before submitting changes.
3246 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3247 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3248 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3249 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3250 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3252 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3253 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3254 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3255 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3256 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3257 around this problem.
3261 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3262 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3263 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3266 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3267 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3269 * New native hosts supported
3271 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3272 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3274 * New targets supported
3276 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3278 * New file formats supported
3280 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3281 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3285 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3287 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3288 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3290 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3291 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3292 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3294 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3295 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3297 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3298 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3299 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3302 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3303 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3304 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3305 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3306 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3308 * Internal improvements
3310 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3311 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3313 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3314 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3315 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3316 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3317 shared code that handles any of them.
3319 * New command line options
3321 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3325 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3326 General Public License.
3328 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3330 * Host/native/target split
3332 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3333 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3334 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3335 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3336 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3338 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3339 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3340 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3341 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3342 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3343 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3344 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3346 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3347 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3348 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3350 * New hosts supported
3352 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3353 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3354 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3356 * New targets supported
3358 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3359 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3361 * New native hosts supported
3363 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3364 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3365 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3367 * New file formats supported
3369 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3370 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3371 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3375 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3376 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3377 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3379 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3381 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3382 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3383 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3384 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3388 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3389 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3390 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3392 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3396 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3397 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3400 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3401 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3403 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3404 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3405 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3406 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3407 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3408 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3410 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3411 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3412 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3413 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3417 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3418 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3419 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3420 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3421 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3423 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3424 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3425 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3426 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3430 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3431 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3432 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3433 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3434 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3435 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3436 each instruction being stepped through.
3438 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3439 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3441 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3442 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3443 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3444 processor with a serial port.
3448 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3449 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3450 supported, and what files each one uses.
3454 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3455 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3456 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3457 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3459 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3460 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3461 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3462 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3466 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3467 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3468 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3469 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3470 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3471 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3473 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3476 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3478 * Better support for C++ function names
3480 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3481 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3482 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3483 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3484 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3486 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3487 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3488 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3489 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3490 for the list of formats.
3492 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3494 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3495 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3496 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3497 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3498 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3499 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3502 * New 'maintenance' command
3504 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3505 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3506 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3508 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3509 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3510 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3511 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3512 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3513 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3515 The following commands are new:
3517 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3518 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3519 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3521 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3523 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3524 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3525 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3526 read after argv processing.
3528 * New hosts supported
3530 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3532 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3534 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3535 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3536 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3537 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3538 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3541 * New targets supported
3543 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3545 * More smarts about finding #include files
3547 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3548 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3549 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3550 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3551 the one that contains your sources.
3553 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3554 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3555 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3557 * Interesting infernals change
3559 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3560 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3561 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3562 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3564 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3566 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3567 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3568 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3570 See the ChangeLog for details.
3572 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3574 * New machines supported (host and target)
3576 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3578 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3580 * New malloc package
3582 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3583 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3584 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3585 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3586 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3587 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3591 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3592 'help info proc' for details.
3594 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3596 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3597 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3600 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3602 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3603 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3604 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3605 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3606 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3607 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3609 * Cross byte order fixes
3611 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3612 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3614 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3616 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3617 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3618 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3619 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3620 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3621 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3622 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3623 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3624 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3625 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3627 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3628 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3629 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3630 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3632 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3633 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3634 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3637 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3639 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3640 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3641 shared across multiple host platforms.
3643 * longjmp() handling
3645 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3646 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3647 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3648 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3652 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3653 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3658 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3659 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3660 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3662 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3664 * New machines supported (host and target)
3666 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3668 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3669 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3671 * New machines supported (target)
3673 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3677 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3678 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3679 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3681 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3682 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3683 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3684 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3685 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3688 * New features for SVR4
3690 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3691 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3692 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3694 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3695 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3696 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3698 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3699 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3701 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3703 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3704 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3705 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3706 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3707 same code linked statically.
3711 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3712 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3713 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3714 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3715 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3716 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3720 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3721 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3722 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3725 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3727 * New machines supported (host and target)
3729 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3730 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3731 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3733 * Almost SCO Unix support
3735 We had hoped to support:
3736 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3737 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3738 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3739 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3741 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3743 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3744 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3745 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3746 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3751 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3752 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3753 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3757 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3758 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3759 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3761 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3763 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3764 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3765 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3767 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3768 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3769 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3770 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3773 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3774 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3775 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3776 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3779 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3780 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3783 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3784 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3785 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3788 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3790 * Improved configuration
3792 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3793 Porting BFD is simpler.
3797 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3798 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3799 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3800 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3804 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3806 * New host supported (not target)
3808 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3811 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3813 * Multiple source language support
3815 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3816 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3817 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3818 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3819 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3820 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3824 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3825 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3826 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3827 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3829 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3830 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3831 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3833 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3834 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3838 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3839 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3840 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3841 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3844 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3846 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3847 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3848 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3849 examining core files.
3853 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3856 * New machines supported (host and target)
3858 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3859 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3860 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3862 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3864 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3866 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3868 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3869 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3870 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3872 * New remote interfaces
3878 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3882 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3884 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3885 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3886 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3887 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3888 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3889 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3890 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3891 stub on the target system.
3893 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3895 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3896 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3897 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3899 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3900 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3903 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3905 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3906 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3908 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3909 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3910 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3912 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3913 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3914 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3915 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3917 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3918 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3919 it is already running. Default is ON.
3921 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3922 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3923 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3924 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3927 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3928 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3929 or the value of the environment variable
3932 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3933 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3936 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3937 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3938 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3940 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3941 history expansion will be performed on
3942 command line input. The default is OFF.
3944 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3945 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3946 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3948 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3949 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3950 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3953 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3954 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3955 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3958 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3959 ``set width'' instead.
3961 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3962 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3963 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3964 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3966 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3969 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3972 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3975 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3978 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3980 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3981 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3982 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3986 * Support for Shared Libraries
3988 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3989 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3990 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3991 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3992 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3993 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3994 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3995 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3997 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3998 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3999 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4001 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4006 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4007 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4008 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4009 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4010 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4011 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4013 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4015 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4017 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4018 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4019 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4022 * C++ multiple inheritance
4024 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4027 * C++ exception handling
4029 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4030 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4031 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4034 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4035 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4036 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4038 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4039 current stack frame.
4042 * Minor command changes
4044 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4045 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4046 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4048 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4049 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4050 frames without printing.
4052 * New directory command
4054 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4055 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4056 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4057 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4058 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4060 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4062 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4065 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4066 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4067 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4068 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob