1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.0
8 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
13 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
16 * Multi-program debugging.
18 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
19 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
20 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
21 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
22 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
23 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
24 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
25 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
27 * New tracing features
29 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
31 ** Trace state variables
33 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
34 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
35 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
36 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
37 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
38 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
39 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
40 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
41 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
42 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
46 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
47 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
48 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
49 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
50 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
51 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
52 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
53 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
54 the regular trace command.
56 ** Disconnected tracing
58 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
59 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
60 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
61 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
62 connection is lost unexpectedly.
67 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
68 the arguments to be comma-separated.
71 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
72 which only declare a variable are not shown.
74 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
76 record save [<FILENAME>]
77 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
78 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
80 record restore <FILENAME>
81 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
82 earlier time, for replay debugging.
84 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
87 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
88 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
94 maint info program-spaces
95 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
97 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
98 show remote interrupt-sequence
99 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
100 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
101 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
102 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
103 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
105 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
106 show remote interrupt-on-connect
107 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
108 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
111 set remotebreak [on | off]
113 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
115 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
116 Create or modify a trace state variable.
119 List trace state variables and their values.
121 delete tvariable $NAME ...
122 Delete one or more trace state variables.
125 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
126 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
128 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
129 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
133 set follow-exec-mode new|same
134 show follow-exec-mode
135 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
136 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
137 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
139 set default-collect EXPR, ...
141 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
142 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
143 such as registers or a critical global variable.
145 set disconnected-tracing
146 show disconnected-tracing
147 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
148 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
154 Define a trace state variable.
157 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
160 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
163 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
167 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
169 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
170 much more reliable. In particular:
171 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
172 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
173 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
174 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
175 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
176 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
177 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
178 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
179 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
180 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
181 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
182 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
183 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
184 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
185 non-threaded programs.
187 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
189 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
190 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
191 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
192 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
193 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
195 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
196 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
197 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
198 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
199 for tracepoint actions.
201 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
202 in hex as well as in symbolic form."
204 * Process record and replay
206 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
207 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
208 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
211 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
212 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
213 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
216 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
217 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
220 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
221 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
222 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
223 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
224 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
225 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
226 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
227 the installation instructions for more information.
229 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
230 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
231 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
232 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
234 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
235 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
237 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
238 now complete on file names.
240 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
241 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
242 For instance, consider:
244 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
245 # struct example variable;
248 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
249 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
251 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
252 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
254 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
255 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
258 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
259 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
260 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
262 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
263 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
264 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
265 and simulator targets may also provide them.
270 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
273 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
274 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
275 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
278 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
279 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
282 Obtains additional operating system information
286 Read or write additional signal information.
288 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
290 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
291 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
292 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
294 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
297 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
298 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
300 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
301 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
302 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
304 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
305 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
307 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
309 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
311 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
312 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
314 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
315 list of section offsets.
317 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
318 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
319 have also been fixed.
321 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
322 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
323 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
325 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
328 template<typename T> class C { };
331 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
333 ptype C<char const *>
335 ptype C<const char *>
338 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
340 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
341 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
343 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
344 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
345 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
347 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
348 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
350 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
353 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
354 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
356 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
357 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
362 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
363 available is determined at configure time.
365 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
367 * Ada tasking support
369 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
373 Print the list of Ada tasks.
375 Print detailed information about task number N.
377 Print the task number of the current task.
379 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
381 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
382 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
384 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
386 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
387 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
388 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
389 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
390 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
391 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
394 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
395 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
398 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
399 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
400 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
401 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
404 * Multi-architecture debugging.
406 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
407 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
408 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
409 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
410 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
412 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
413 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
414 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
415 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
416 --enable-targets configure option.
418 * Non-stop mode debugging.
420 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
421 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
422 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
423 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
424 section in the user manual for more information.
426 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
427 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
428 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
429 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
430 extensions on linux targets.
432 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
434 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
435 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
436 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
437 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
438 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
439 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
440 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
441 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
442 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
444 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
446 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
448 maint set python print-stack
449 maint show python print-stack
450 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
453 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
458 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
462 Show operating system information about processes.
465 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
468 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
471 Detach from inferior number NUM.
474 Kill inferior number NUM.
479 show spu stop-on-load
480 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
482 set spu auto-flush-cache
483 show spu auto-flush-cache
484 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
485 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
487 set sh calling-convention
488 show sh calling-convention
489 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
493 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
495 set disassemble-next-line
496 show disassemble-next-line
497 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
500 set remote noack-packet
501 show remote noack-packet
502 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
503 under "New remote packets."
505 set remote query-attached-packet
506 show remote query-attached-packet
507 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
509 set remote read-siginfo-object
510 show remote read-siginfo-object
511 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
514 set remote write-siginfo-object
515 show remote write-siginfo-object
516 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
519 set remote reverse-continue
520 show remote reverse-continue
521 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
523 set remote reverse-step
524 show remote reverse-step
525 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
527 set displaced-stepping
528 show displaced-stepping
529 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
530 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
531 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
535 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
537 maint set internal-error
538 maint show internal-error
539 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
541 maint set internal-warning
542 maint show internal-warning
543 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
548 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
550 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
551 show multiple-symbols
552 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
553 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
554 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
556 set breakpoint always-inserted
557 show breakpoint always-inserted
558 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
559 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
560 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
562 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
563 show arm fallback-mode
564 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
566 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
567 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
568 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
569 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
571 set disable-randomization
572 show disable-randomization
573 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
574 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
575 multiple debugging sessions.
579 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
584 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
585 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
586 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
587 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
589 set target-wide-charset
590 show target-wide-charset
591 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
592 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
594 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
596 set tcp connect-timeout
597 show tcp connect-timeout
598 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
599 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
600 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
602 set libthread-db-search-path
603 show libthread-db-search-path
604 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
607 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
608 show schedule-multiple
609 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
614 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
615 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
616 affecting correctness.
618 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
619 show interactive-mode
620 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
621 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
622 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
623 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
624 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
629 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
630 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
631 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
635 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
636 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
637 alias for the `fork' command.
640 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
641 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
642 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
645 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
646 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
647 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
651 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
652 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
653 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
656 * New native configurations
658 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
660 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
664 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
665 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
666 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
669 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
670 (mingw32ce) debugging.
676 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
678 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
680 * New native configurations
682 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
683 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
687 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
688 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
690 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
692 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
693 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
694 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
695 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
697 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
698 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
700 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
703 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
704 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
705 and in inlined functions.
707 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
708 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
709 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
711 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
713 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
714 registers on PowerPC targets.
716 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
717 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
719 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
720 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
722 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
723 extended-remote mode.
725 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
726 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
727 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
728 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
730 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
731 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
732 target architectures.
734 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
735 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
736 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
737 stored in two consecutive float registers.
739 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
742 * Improved support for debugging Ada
743 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
745 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
746 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
747 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
748 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
750 - Improved command completion in Ada
753 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
758 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
759 show print frame-arguments
760 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
761 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
766 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
773 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
782 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
785 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
789 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
791 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
793 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
794 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
795 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
797 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
798 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
799 -Bsymbolic linker option.
801 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
802 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
805 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
806 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
808 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
809 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
811 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
813 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
814 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
815 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
817 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
818 automatically displayed as character or string data.
820 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
821 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
824 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
825 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
826 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
828 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
831 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
832 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
833 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
835 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
837 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
839 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
840 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
841 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
843 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
844 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
846 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
847 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
848 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
849 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
850 Windows and SymbianOS).
852 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
853 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
855 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
856 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
862 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
863 when debugging using remote targets.
865 set mem inaccessible-by-default
866 show mem inaccessible-by-default
867 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
868 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
869 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
870 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
871 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
873 set breakpoint auto-hw
874 show breakpoint auto-hw
875 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
876 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
877 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
878 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
879 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
880 including "next" and "finish".
883 catch exception unhandled
884 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
887 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
891 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
892 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
893 an alias to "set sysroot".
896 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
897 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
900 * New native configurations
902 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
907 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
908 not query the target for its built-in description.
912 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
913 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
914 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
919 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
920 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
923 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
928 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
929 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
931 qXfer:libraries:read:
932 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
933 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
934 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
935 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
939 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
948 i[34567]86-*-netware*
949 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
950 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
952 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
955 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
956 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
965 * Other removed features
972 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
979 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
984 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
985 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
990 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
991 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
993 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
995 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
996 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
997 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
998 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1000 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1002 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1003 in debugging information.
1007 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1008 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1010 set mips stack-arg-size
1011 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1013 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1015 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1020 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1022 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1023 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1024 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1026 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1027 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1030 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1031 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1033 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1034 stub provides the required support.
1036 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1037 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1042 unset substitute-path
1043 show substitute-path
1044 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1045 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1046 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1047 between compilation and debugging.
1051 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1052 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1053 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1057 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1059 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1060 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1062 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1064 * New remote packets
1067 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1068 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1069 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1070 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1074 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1075 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1077 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1078 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1079 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1084 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1086 * Removed remote packets
1089 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1090 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1092 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1096 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1098 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1102 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1103 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1105 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1107 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1109 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1110 previously saved state.
1112 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1114 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1116 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1117 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1119 info forks List forks of the user program that
1120 are available to be debugged.
1122 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1123 forks of the user program that are
1124 available to be debugged.
1126 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1127 that are available to be debugged (and
1128 kill the forked process).
1130 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1131 that are available to be debugged (and
1132 allow the process to continue).
1136 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1138 * Improved Windows host support
1140 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1141 native console support, and remote communications using either
1142 network sockets or serial ports.
1144 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1146 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1147 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1148 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1149 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1150 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1151 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1155 The ARM rdi-share module.
1157 The Netware NLM debug server.
1159 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1161 * New native configurations
1163 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1164 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1168 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1170 * New command line options
1172 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1173 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1174 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1175 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1176 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1177 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1178 with the --command (-x) option.
1180 * Deprecated commands removed
1182 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1186 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1187 othernames set arm disassembler
1188 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1189 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1190 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1193 * New BSD user-level threads support
1195 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1196 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1199 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1200 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1201 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1203 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1204 are not yet supported.
1206 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1207 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1209 * REMOVED configurations and files
1211 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1212 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1213 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1215 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1217 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1218 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1221 * VAX floating point support
1223 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1225 * User-defined command support
1227 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1228 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1229 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1231 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1233 * New command line option
1235 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1238 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1240 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1241 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1242 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1243 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1244 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1246 * Internationalization
1248 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1249 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1250 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1254 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1255 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1256 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1258 * New native configurations
1260 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1264 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1265 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1267 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1269 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1270 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1271 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1274 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1275 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1276 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1286 powerpc bdm protocol
1288 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1289 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1291 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1293 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1294 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1295 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1296 permanently REMOVED.
1305 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1307 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1309 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1310 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1313 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1315 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1316 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1317 IRIX long double values).
1321 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1322 command. This problem has been fixed.
1324 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1326 * Fix for ``many threads''
1328 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1329 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1332 ptrace: No such process.
1333 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1335 This problem has been fixed.
1337 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1339 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1342 * New ``start'' command.
1344 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1346 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1348 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1349 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1350 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1352 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1353 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1354 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1355 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1356 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1357 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1358 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1359 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1360 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1362 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1364 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1365 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1366 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1367 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1368 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1370 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1371 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1372 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1374 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1376 * New native configurations
1378 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1379 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1380 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1381 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1382 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1383 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1384 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1386 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1388 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1389 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1390 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1391 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1392 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1393 work, was also included.
1395 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1396 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1406 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1407 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1409 * REMOVED configurations and files
1411 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1412 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1413 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1414 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1415 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1416 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1417 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1418 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1419 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1420 sonymips mips-sony-*
1421 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1423 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1425 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1427 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1428 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1429 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1430 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1433 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1435 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1436 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1437 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1438 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1439 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1440 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1443 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1445 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1447 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1448 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1449 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1451 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1453 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1454 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1456 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1458 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1459 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1460 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1462 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1464 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1465 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1467 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1469 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1470 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1471 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1473 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1475 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1476 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1477 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1479 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1481 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1483 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1484 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1486 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1488 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1489 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1490 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1491 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1493 * Revised SPARC target
1495 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1496 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1497 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1498 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1499 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1503 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1504 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1505 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1508 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1510 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1511 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1514 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1516 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1517 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1518 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1519 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1520 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1521 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1522 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1523 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1524 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1526 * New native configurations
1528 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1529 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1530 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1531 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1532 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1534 * New debugging protocols
1536 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1538 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1540 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1541 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1542 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1544 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1546 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1547 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1548 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1549 permanently REMOVED.
1551 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1552 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1553 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1554 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1555 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1556 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1557 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1558 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1559 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1560 sonymips mips-sony-*
1561 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1563 * REMOVED configurations and files
1565 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1566 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1567 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1568 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1569 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1570 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1571 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1572 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1573 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1574 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1575 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1576 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1577 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1578 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1579 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1580 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1581 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1583 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1587 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1588 integrated into GDB.
1590 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1592 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1593 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1594 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1597 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1598 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1599 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1603 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1604 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1605 remote protocol documentation for details.
1607 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1609 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1610 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1611 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1614 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1616 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1617 per-thread variables.
1619 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1621 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1622 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1624 * Separate debug info.
1626 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1627 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1628 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1629 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1630 and optional debug files.
1632 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1634 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1635 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1638 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1639 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1643 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1644 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1645 considered "useable".
1647 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1649 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1650 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1653 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1655 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1656 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1658 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1660 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1661 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1664 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1666 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1667 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1671 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1672 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1673 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1674 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1675 data, for more informative profiling results.
1677 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1679 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1680 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1681 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1683 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1686 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1687 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1688 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1689 in a subsequent -var-update.
1691 * New native configurations.
1693 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1695 * Multi-arched targets.
1697 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1698 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1700 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1702 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1703 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1704 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1705 permanently REMOVED.
1707 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1708 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1709 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1710 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1711 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1712 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1713 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1714 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1715 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1716 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1717 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1718 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1720 * REMOVED configurations and files
1723 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1724 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1725 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1726 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1727 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1728 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1730 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1731 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1732 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1733 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1734 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1735 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1737 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1739 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1740 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1741 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1742 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1743 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1745 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1747 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1749 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1750 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1751 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1752 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1753 shared libs like mad''.
1755 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1757 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1758 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1759 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1760 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1762 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1764 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1765 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1768 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1769 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1771 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1772 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1774 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1775 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1776 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1777 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1779 * Multi-arched targets.
1781 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1782 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1784 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1785 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1786 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1790 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1793 * New native configurations
1795 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1796 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1797 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1798 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1800 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1802 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1803 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1804 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1805 permanently REMOVED.
1807 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1808 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1809 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1810 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1811 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1812 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1813 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1814 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1815 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1816 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1818 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1819 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1821 * OBSOLETE languages
1823 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1825 * REMOVED configurations and files
1827 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1828 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1829 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1830 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1831 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1833 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1835 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1837 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1838 commands. The default is 1024.
1840 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1842 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1844 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1846 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1847 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1848 from a file into memory (restore).
1850 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1852 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1853 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1854 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1856 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1864 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1865 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1866 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1868 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1869 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1870 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1872 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1873 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1874 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1876 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1877 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1878 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1880 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1882 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1884 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1885 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1886 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1887 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1888 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1889 (notably embedded) targets.
1891 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1893 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1894 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1895 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1896 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1898 * New command line option
1900 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1902 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1904 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1905 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1906 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1907 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1908 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1909 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1910 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1911 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1912 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1913 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1915 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1917 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1918 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1920 * New native configurations
1922 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1923 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1924 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1925 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1929 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1931 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1933 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1934 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1935 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1936 permanently REMOVED.
1938 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1939 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1940 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1941 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1942 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1944 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1946 * REMOVED configurations and files
1948 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1950 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1951 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1952 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1953 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1954 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1955 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1956 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1957 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1958 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1959 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1960 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1962 * Changes to command line processing
1964 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1965 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1967 * Changes to key bindings
1969 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1971 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1973 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1975 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1978 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1980 Numerous documentation fixes.
1982 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1984 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1986 * New native configurations
1988 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1989 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1990 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1991 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1992 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1993 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1997 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1999 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2001 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2003 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2004 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2005 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2006 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2007 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2009 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2010 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2011 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2012 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2013 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2014 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2015 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2016 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2018 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2019 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2021 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2022 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2023 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2024 permanently REMOVED.
2026 * REMOVED configurations and files
2028 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2029 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2031 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2035 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2037 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2038 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2043 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2045 * The MI enabled by default.
2047 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2048 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2049 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2050 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2051 which is now deprecated.
2053 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2055 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2056 main features are supported:
2058 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2060 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2063 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2065 - a Pascal expression parser.
2067 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2069 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2071 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2073 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2074 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2076 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2078 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2080 * Changes in completion.
2082 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2083 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2084 users expect at the shell prompt.
2086 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2087 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2088 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2089 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2090 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2091 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2092 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2094 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2096 * New platform-independent commands:
2098 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2099 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2100 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2102 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2104 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2105 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2106 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2108 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2110 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2111 multi-threaded programs though.
2113 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2115 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2117 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2118 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2121 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2123 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2124 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2125 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2126 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2127 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2130 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2131 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2132 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2134 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2136 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2137 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2139 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2140 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2143 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2144 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2145 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2146 a given linear address.
2148 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2149 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2150 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2152 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2154 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2156 * Changes in documentation.
2158 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2159 Documentation License.
2161 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2164 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2166 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2169 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2170 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2171 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2173 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2175 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2176 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2177 contents of this file.
2181 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2183 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2185 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2187 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2188 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2189 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2190 greater level of detail.
2192 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2194 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2195 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2196 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2199 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2201 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2202 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2203 machines ``out of the box''.
2205 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2206 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2207 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2208 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2209 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2211 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2212 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2213 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2214 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2215 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2217 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2218 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2221 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2224 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2225 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2226 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2227 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2229 * New native configurations
2231 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2232 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2236 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2237 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2238 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2239 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2241 * OBSOLETE configurations
2243 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2244 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2246 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2249 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2250 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2251 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2252 be permanently REMOVED.
2254 * Gould support removed
2256 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2258 * New features for SVR4
2260 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2261 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2262 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2264 * Many C++ enhancements
2266 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2267 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2269 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2271 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2272 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2273 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2274 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2276 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2277 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2279 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2281 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2282 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2283 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2285 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2286 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2288 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2290 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2291 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2292 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2294 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2296 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2297 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2298 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2300 * ``apropos'' command added.
2302 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2303 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2304 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2308 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2309 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2310 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2311 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2312 enabled by configuring with:
2314 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2316 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2318 * New native configurations
2320 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2321 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2322 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2326 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2327 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2328 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2330 * OBSOLETE configurations
2332 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2334 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2335 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2336 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2337 be permanently REMOVED.
2341 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2342 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2343 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2344 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2345 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2346 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2347 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2352 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2354 * set extension-language
2356 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2357 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2358 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2359 set extension-language .c c++
2360 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2361 and their associated languages.
2363 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2365 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2366 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2367 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2371 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2372 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2374 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2375 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2377 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2378 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2379 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2380 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2381 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2382 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2383 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2384 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2386 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2387 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2388 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2389 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2393 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2394 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2395 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2396 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2397 for xdb and dbx commands.
2401 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2402 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2403 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2405 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2406 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2407 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2409 * Debugging across forks
2411 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2416 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2417 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2418 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2420 * GDB remote protocol additions
2422 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2423 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2424 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2425 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2427 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2428 full 64-bit address. The command
2430 set remoteaddresssize 32
2432 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2433 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2436 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2437 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2439 maint packet heythere
2441 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2442 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2445 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2446 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2447 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2449 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2451 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2452 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2453 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2455 * mask-address variable for Mips
2457 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2458 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2459 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2461 * Higher serial baud rates
2463 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2464 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2465 to achieve all of these rates.)
2469 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2470 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2473 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2475 * New native configurations
2477 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2478 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2479 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2480 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2481 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2482 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2483 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2487 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2488 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2489 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2490 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2491 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2492 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2493 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2494 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2495 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2496 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2497 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2499 * New debugging protocols
2501 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2502 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2503 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2504 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2505 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2506 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2510 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2511 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2516 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2517 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2519 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2521 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2522 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2523 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2525 * Live range splitting
2527 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2528 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2529 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2533 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2534 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2538 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2539 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2540 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2545 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2550 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2551 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2552 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2553 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2554 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2555 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2559 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2560 the symbol at the specified address.
2564 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2565 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2566 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2567 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2568 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2572 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2573 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2574 of most MIPS variants.
2578 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2579 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2580 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2584 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2585 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2586 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2587 the possible architectures.
2589 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2591 * New native configurations
2593 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2594 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2595 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2596 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2597 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2598 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2602 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2603 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2604 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2605 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2606 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2608 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2612 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2613 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2614 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2615 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2616 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2620 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2622 * Windows 95/NT native
2624 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2625 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2626 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2627 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2628 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2630 * dont-repeat command
2632 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2633 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2634 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2635 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2637 * Send break instead of ^C
2639 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2640 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2641 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2643 * Remote protocol timeout
2645 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2646 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2647 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2649 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2651 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2652 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2653 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2654 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2655 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2657 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2658 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2659 automatically on hpux10.
2661 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2663 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2665 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2667 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2668 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2669 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2670 every character. The default value is 1050.
2672 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2674 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2675 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2676 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2677 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2678 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2679 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2681 * Speedups for remote debugging
2683 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2684 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2685 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2687 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2689 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2690 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2692 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2694 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2696 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2697 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2699 * Remote targets use caching
2701 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2702 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2703 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2704 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2705 off' turns the the data cache off.
2707 * Remote targets may have threads
2709 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2710 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2711 gdb/remote.c for details.
2715 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2716 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2717 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2718 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2719 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2720 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2721 sequence is something like
2723 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2725 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2729 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2730 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2731 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2732 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2733 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2734 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2735 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2736 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2740 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2741 but does simplify configuration and building.
2745 GDB now supports hpux10.
2747 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2749 * New native configurations
2751 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2752 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2753 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2754 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2758 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2759 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2760 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2761 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2764 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2766 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2767 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2768 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2769 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2770 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2772 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2774 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2775 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2778 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2780 To execute the command use:
2783 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2784 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2785 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2787 * New `if' and `while' commands
2789 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2790 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2791 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2792 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2793 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2794 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2795 if the expression is zero.
2797 * Fortran source language mode
2799 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2800 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2801 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2802 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2805 * Better HPUX support
2807 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2808 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2809 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2810 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2811 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2817 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2818 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2824 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2825 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2828 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2829 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2831 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2833 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2834 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2835 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2836 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2837 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2838 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2840 * New DOS host serial code
2842 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2843 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2846 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2848 * New "complete" command
2850 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2851 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2853 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2855 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2856 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2858 * Breakpoint hit counts
2860 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2861 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2862 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2863 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2864 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2867 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2869 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2870 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2871 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2873 * Shared library breakpoints
2875 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2876 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2878 * Hardware watchpoints
2880 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2881 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2883 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2887 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2888 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2890 * Improved Irix 5 support
2892 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2894 * Improved HPPA support
2896 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2898 * New native configurations
2900 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2901 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2902 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2903 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2907 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2908 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2911 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2913 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2914 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2918 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2919 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2921 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2923 * Irix 5 is now supported
2927 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2928 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2929 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2930 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2931 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2934 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2936 * User visible changes:
2940 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2941 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2942 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2943 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2944 debugging info for the mips target).
2946 * DEC Alpha native support
2948 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2949 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2950 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2951 Alpha-specific notes.
2953 * Preliminary thread implementation
2955 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2957 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2959 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2960 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2963 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2965 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2966 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2967 call methods, ...etc.
2969 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2971 * User visible changes:
2973 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2974 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2975 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2976 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2978 Filename completion now works.
2980 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2981 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2982 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2984 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2985 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2986 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2987 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2988 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2992 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2993 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2996 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3000 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3001 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3002 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3006 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3007 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3008 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3009 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3010 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3014 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3015 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3016 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3018 * New targets supported
3020 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3021 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3022 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3023 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3024 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3026 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3027 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3028 GO32 memory extender.
3030 * New remote protocols
3032 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3034 * New source languages supported
3036 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3037 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3038 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3041 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3043 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3045 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3046 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3047 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3048 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3049 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3050 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3052 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3054 * Faster and better demangling
3056 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3057 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3058 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3059 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3060 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3061 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3064 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3065 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3066 compiler does not actually implement.
3068 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3070 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3071 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3072 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3073 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3074 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3075 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3078 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3079 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3081 * Improved configure script
3083 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3084 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3085 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3086 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3088 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3089 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3090 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3091 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3092 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3093 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3095 * Documentation improvements
3097 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3098 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3099 before submitting changes.
3101 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3102 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3103 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3104 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3105 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3107 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3108 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3109 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3110 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3111 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3112 around this problem.
3116 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3117 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3118 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3121 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3122 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3124 * New native hosts supported
3126 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3127 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3129 * New targets supported
3131 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3133 * New file formats supported
3135 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3136 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3140 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3142 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3143 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3145 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3146 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3147 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3149 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3150 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3152 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3153 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3154 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3157 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3158 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3159 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3160 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3161 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3163 * Internal improvements
3165 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3166 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3168 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3169 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3170 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3171 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3172 shared code that handles any of them.
3174 * New command line options
3176 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3180 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3181 General Public License.
3183 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3185 * Host/native/target split
3187 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3188 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3189 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3190 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3191 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3193 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3194 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3195 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3196 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3197 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3198 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3199 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3201 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3202 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3203 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3205 * New hosts supported
3207 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3208 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3209 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3211 * New targets supported
3213 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3214 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3216 * New native hosts supported
3218 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3219 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3220 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3222 * New file formats supported
3224 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3225 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3226 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3230 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3231 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3232 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3234 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3236 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3237 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3238 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3239 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3243 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3244 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3245 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3247 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3251 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3252 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3255 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3256 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3258 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3259 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3260 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3261 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3262 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3263 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3265 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3266 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3267 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3268 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3272 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3273 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3274 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3275 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3276 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3278 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3279 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3280 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3281 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3285 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3286 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3287 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3288 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3289 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3290 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3291 each instruction being stepped through.
3293 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3294 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3296 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3297 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3298 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3299 processor with a serial port.
3303 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3304 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3305 supported, and what files each one uses.
3309 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3310 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3311 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3312 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3314 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3315 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3316 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3317 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3321 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3322 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3323 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3324 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3325 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3326 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3328 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3331 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3333 * Better support for C++ function names
3335 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3336 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3337 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3338 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3339 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3341 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3342 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3343 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3344 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3345 for the list of formats.
3347 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3349 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3350 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3351 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3352 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3353 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3354 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3357 * New 'maintenance' command
3359 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3360 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3361 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3363 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3364 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3365 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3366 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3367 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3368 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3370 The following commands are new:
3372 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3373 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3374 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3376 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3378 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3379 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3380 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3381 read after argv processing.
3383 * New hosts supported
3385 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3387 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3389 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3390 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3391 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3392 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3393 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3396 * New targets supported
3398 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3400 * More smarts about finding #include files
3402 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3403 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3404 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3405 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3406 the one that contains your sources.
3408 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3409 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3410 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3412 * Interesting infernals change
3414 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3415 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3416 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3417 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3419 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3421 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3422 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3423 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3425 See the ChangeLog for details.
3427 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3429 * New machines supported (host and target)
3431 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3433 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3435 * New malloc package
3437 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3438 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3439 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3440 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3441 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3442 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3446 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3447 'help info proc' for details.
3449 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3451 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3452 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3455 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3457 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3458 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3459 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3460 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3461 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3462 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3464 * Cross byte order fixes
3466 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3467 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3469 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3471 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3472 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3473 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3474 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3475 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3476 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3477 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3478 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3479 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3480 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3482 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3483 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3484 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3485 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3487 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3488 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3489 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3492 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3494 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3495 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3496 shared across multiple host platforms.
3498 * longjmp() handling
3500 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3501 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3502 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3503 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3507 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3508 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3513 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3514 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3515 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3517 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3519 * New machines supported (host and target)
3521 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3523 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3524 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3526 * New machines supported (target)
3528 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3532 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3533 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3534 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3536 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3537 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3538 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3539 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3540 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3543 * New features for SVR4
3545 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3546 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3547 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3549 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3550 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3551 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3553 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3554 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3556 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3558 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3559 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3560 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3561 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3562 same code linked statically.
3566 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3567 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3568 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3569 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3570 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3571 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3575 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3576 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3577 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3580 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3582 * New machines supported (host and target)
3584 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3585 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3586 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3588 * Almost SCO Unix support
3590 We had hoped to support:
3591 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3592 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3593 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3594 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3596 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3598 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3599 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3600 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3601 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3606 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3607 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3608 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3612 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3613 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3614 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3616 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3618 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3619 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3620 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3622 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3623 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3624 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3625 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3628 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3629 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3630 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3631 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3634 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3635 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3638 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3639 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3640 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3643 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3645 * Improved configuration
3647 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3648 Porting BFD is simpler.
3652 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3653 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3654 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3655 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3659 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3661 * New host supported (not target)
3663 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3666 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3668 * Multiple source language support
3670 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3671 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3672 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3673 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3674 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3675 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3679 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3680 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3681 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3682 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3684 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3685 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3686 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3688 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3689 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3693 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3694 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3695 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3696 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3699 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3701 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3702 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3703 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3704 examining core files.
3708 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3711 * New machines supported (host and target)
3713 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3714 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3715 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3717 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3719 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3721 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3723 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3724 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3725 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3727 * New remote interfaces
3733 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3737 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3739 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3740 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3741 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3742 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3743 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3744 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3745 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3746 stub on the target system.
3748 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3750 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3751 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3752 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3754 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3755 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3758 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3760 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3761 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3763 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3764 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3765 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3767 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3768 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3769 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3770 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3772 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3773 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3774 it is already running. Default is ON.
3776 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3777 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3778 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3779 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3782 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3783 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3784 or the value of the environment variable
3787 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3788 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3791 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3792 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3793 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3795 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3796 history expansion will be performed on
3797 command line input. The default is OFF.
3799 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3800 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3801 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3803 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3804 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3805 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3808 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3809 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3810 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3813 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3814 ``set width'' instead.
3816 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3817 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3818 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3819 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3821 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3824 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3827 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3830 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3833 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3835 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3836 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3837 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3841 * Support for Shared Libraries
3843 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3844 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3845 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3846 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3847 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3848 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3849 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3850 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3852 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3853 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3854 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3856 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3861 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3862 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3863 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3864 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3865 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3866 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3868 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3870 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3872 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3873 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3874 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3877 * C++ multiple inheritance
3879 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3882 * C++ exception handling
3884 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3885 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3886 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3889 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3890 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3891 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3893 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3894 current stack frame.
3897 * Minor command changes
3899 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3900 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3901 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3903 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3904 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3905 frames without printing.
3907 * New directory command
3909 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3910 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3911 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3912 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3913 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3915 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3917 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3920 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3921 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3922 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3923 where the program that you are debugging will run.