1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
6 * d10v `regs' command deprecated
8 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
9 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
13 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
14 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
15 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
16 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
17 data, for more informative profiling results.
19 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
21 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
22 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
23 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
25 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
28 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
29 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
30 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
31 in a subsequent -var-update.
33 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
35 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
40 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
41 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
42 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
43 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
44 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
45 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
46 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
47 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
49 * REMOVED configurations and files
52 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
53 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
54 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
55 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
56 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
57 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
59 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
60 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
61 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
62 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
63 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
64 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
66 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
68 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
69 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
70 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
71 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
72 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
74 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
76 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
78 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
79 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
80 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
81 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
82 shared libs like mad''.
84 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
86 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
87 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
88 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
89 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
91 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
93 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
94 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
97 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
98 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
100 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
101 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
103 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
104 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
105 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
106 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
108 * Multi-arched targets.
110 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
111 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
113 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
114 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
115 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
119 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
122 * New native configurations
124 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
125 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
126 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
127 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
129 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
131 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
132 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
133 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
136 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
137 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
138 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
139 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
140 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
141 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
142 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
143 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
144 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
145 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
147 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
148 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
152 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
154 * REMOVED configurations and files
156 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
157 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
158 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
159 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
160 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
162 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
164 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
166 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
167 commands. The default is 1024.
169 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
171 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
173 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
175 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
176 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
177 from a file into memory (restore).
179 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
181 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
182 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
183 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
185 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
193 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
194 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
195 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
197 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
198 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
199 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
201 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
202 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
203 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
205 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
206 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
207 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
209 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
211 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
213 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
214 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
215 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
216 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
217 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
218 (notably embedded) targets.
220 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
222 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
223 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
224 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
225 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
227 * New command line option
229 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
231 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
233 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
234 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
235 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
236 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
237 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
238 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
239 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
240 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
241 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
242 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
244 * Changes in ARM configurations.
246 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
247 configuration is fully multi-arch.
249 * New native configurations
251 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
252 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
253 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
254 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
258 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
260 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
262 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
263 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
264 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
267 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
268 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
269 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
270 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
271 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
273 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
275 * REMOVED configurations and files
277 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
279 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
280 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
281 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
282 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
283 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
284 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
285 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
286 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
287 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
288 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
289 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
291 * Changes to command line processing
293 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
294 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
296 * Changes to key bindings
298 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
300 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
302 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
304 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
307 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
309 Numerous documentation fixes.
311 Numerous testsuite fixes.
313 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
315 * New native configurations
317 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
318 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
319 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
320 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
322 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
326 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
328 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
330 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
332 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
333 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
334 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
335 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
336 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
338 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
339 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
340 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
341 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
342 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
343 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
344 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
345 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
347 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
348 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
350 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
351 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
352 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
355 * REMOVED configurations and files
357 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
358 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
360 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
364 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
366 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
367 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
372 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
374 * The MI enabled by default.
376 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
377 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
378 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
379 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
380 which is now deprecated.
382 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
384 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
385 main features are supported:
387 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
389 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
392 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
394 - a Pascal expression parser.
396 However, some important features are not yet supported.
398 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
400 - there are some problems with boolean types;
402 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
403 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
405 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
407 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
409 * Changes in completion.
411 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
412 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
413 users expect at the shell prompt.
415 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
416 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
417 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
418 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
419 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
420 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
421 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
423 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
425 * New platform-independent commands:
427 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
428 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
429 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
431 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
433 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
434 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
435 many threads as your system allows you to have.
437 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
439 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
440 multi-threaded programs though.
442 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
444 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
446 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
447 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
450 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
452 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
453 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
454 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
455 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
456 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
459 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
460 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
461 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
463 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
465 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
466 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
468 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
469 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
472 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
473 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
474 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
475 a given linear address.
477 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
478 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
479 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
481 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
483 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
485 * Changes in documentation.
487 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
488 Documentation License.
490 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
493 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
495 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
498 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
499 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
500 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
502 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
504 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
505 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
506 contents of this file.
510 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
512 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
514 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
516 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
517 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
518 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
519 greater level of detail.
521 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
523 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
524 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
525 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
528 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
530 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
531 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
532 machines ``out of the box''.
534 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
535 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
536 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
537 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
538 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
540 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
541 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
542 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
543 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
544 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
546 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
547 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
550 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
553 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
554 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
555 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
556 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
558 * New native configurations
560 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
561 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
565 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
566 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
567 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
568 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
570 * OBSOLETE configurations
572 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
573 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
575 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
578 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
579 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
580 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
581 be permanently REMOVED.
583 * Gould support removed
585 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
587 * New features for SVR4
589 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
590 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
591 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
593 * Many C++ enhancements
595 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
596 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
598 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
600 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
601 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
602 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
603 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
605 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
606 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
608 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
610 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
611 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
612 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
614 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
615 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
617 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
619 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
620 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
621 include ``set remote P-packet''.
623 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
625 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
626 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
627 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
629 * ``apropos'' command added.
631 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
632 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
633 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
637 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
638 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
639 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
640 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
641 enabled by configuring with:
643 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
645 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
647 * New native configurations
649 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
650 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
651 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
655 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
656 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
657 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
659 * OBSOLETE configurations
661 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
663 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
664 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
665 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
666 be permanently REMOVED.
670 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
671 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
672 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
673 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
674 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
675 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
676 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
681 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
683 * set extension-language
685 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
686 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
687 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
688 set extension-language .c c++
689 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
690 and their associated languages.
692 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
694 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
695 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
696 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
700 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
701 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
703 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
704 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
706 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
707 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
708 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
709 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
710 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
711 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
712 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
713 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
715 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
716 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
717 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
718 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
722 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
723 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
724 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
725 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
726 for xdb and dbx commands.
730 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
731 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
732 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
734 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
735 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
736 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
738 * Debugging across forks
740 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
745 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
746 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
747 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
749 * GDB remote protocol additions
751 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
752 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
753 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
754 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
756 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
757 full 64-bit address. The command
759 set remoteaddresssize 32
761 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
762 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
765 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
766 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
768 maint packet heythere
770 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
771 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
774 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
775 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
776 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
778 * Tracing can collect general expressions
780 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
781 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
782 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
784 * mask-address variable for Mips
786 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
787 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
788 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
790 * Higher serial baud rates
792 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
793 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
794 to achieve all of these rates.)
798 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
799 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
802 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
804 * New native configurations
806 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
807 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
808 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
809 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
810 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
811 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
812 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
816 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
817 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
818 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
819 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
820 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
821 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
822 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
823 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
824 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
825 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
826 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
828 * New debugging protocols
830 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
831 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
832 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
833 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
834 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
835 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
839 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
840 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
845 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
846 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
848 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
850 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
851 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
852 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
854 * Live range splitting
856 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
857 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
858 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
862 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
863 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
867 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
868 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
869 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
874 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
879 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
880 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
881 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
882 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
883 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
884 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
888 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
889 the symbol at the specified address.
893 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
894 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
895 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
896 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
897 file tracepoint.c for more details.
901 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
902 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
903 of most MIPS variants.
907 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
908 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
909 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
913 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
914 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
915 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
916 the possible architectures.
918 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
920 * New native configurations
922 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
923 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
924 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
925 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
926 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
927 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
931 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
932 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
933 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
934 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
935 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
937 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
941 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
942 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
943 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
944 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
945 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
949 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
951 * Windows 95/NT native
953 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
954 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
955 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
956 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
957 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
959 * dont-repeat command
961 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
962 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
963 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
964 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
966 * Send break instead of ^C
968 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
969 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
970 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
972 * Remote protocol timeout
974 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
975 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
976 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
978 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
980 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
981 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
982 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
983 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
984 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
986 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
987 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
988 automatically on hpux10.
990 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
992 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
994 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
996 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
997 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
998 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
999 every character. The default value is 1050.
1001 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1003 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1004 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1005 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1006 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1007 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1008 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1010 * Speedups for remote debugging
1012 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1013 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1014 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1016 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1018 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1019 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1021 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1023 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1025 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1026 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1028 * Remote targets use caching
1030 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1031 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1032 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1033 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1034 off' turns the the data cache off.
1036 * Remote targets may have threads
1038 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1039 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1040 gdb/remote.c for details.
1044 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1045 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1046 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1047 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1048 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1049 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1050 sequence is something like
1052 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1054 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1058 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1059 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1060 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1061 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1062 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1063 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1064 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1065 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1069 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1070 but does simplify configuration and building.
1074 GDB now supports hpux10.
1076 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1078 * New native configurations
1080 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1081 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1082 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1083 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1087 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1088 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1089 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1090 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1093 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1095 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1096 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1097 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1098 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1099 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1101 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1103 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1104 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1107 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1109 To execute the command use:
1112 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1113 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1114 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1116 * New `if' and `while' commands
1118 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1119 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1120 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1121 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1122 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1123 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1124 if the expression is zero.
1126 * Fortran source language mode
1128 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1129 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1130 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1131 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1134 * Better HPUX support
1136 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1137 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1138 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1139 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1140 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1146 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1147 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1153 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1154 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1157 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1158 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1160 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1162 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1163 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1164 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1165 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1166 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1167 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1169 * New DOS host serial code
1171 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1172 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1175 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1177 * New "complete" command
1179 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1180 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1182 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1184 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1185 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1187 * Breakpoint hit counts
1189 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1190 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1191 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1192 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1193 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1196 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1198 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1199 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1200 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1202 * Shared library breakpoints
1204 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1205 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1207 * Hardware watchpoints
1209 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1210 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1212 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1216 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1217 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1219 * Improved Irix 5 support
1221 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1223 * Improved HPPA support
1225 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1227 * New native configurations
1229 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1230 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1231 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1232 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1236 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1237 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1240 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1242 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1243 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1247 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1248 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1250 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1252 * Irix 5 is now supported
1256 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1257 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1258 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1259 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1260 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1263 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1265 * User visible changes:
1269 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1270 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1271 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1272 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1273 debugging info for the mips target).
1275 * DEC Alpha native support
1277 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1278 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1279 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1280 Alpha-specific notes.
1282 * Preliminary thread implementation
1284 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1286 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1288 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1289 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1292 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1294 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1295 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1296 call methods, ...etc.
1298 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1300 * User visible changes:
1302 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1303 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1304 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1305 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1307 Filename completion now works.
1309 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1310 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1311 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1313 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1314 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1315 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1316 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1317 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1321 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1322 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1325 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1329 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1330 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1331 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1335 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1336 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1337 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1338 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1339 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1343 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1344 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1345 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1347 * New targets supported
1349 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1350 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1351 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1352 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1353 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1355 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1356 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1357 GO32 memory extender.
1359 * New remote protocols
1361 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1363 * New source languages supported
1365 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1366 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1367 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1370 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1372 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1374 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1375 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1376 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1377 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1378 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1379 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1381 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1383 * Faster and better demangling
1385 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1386 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1387 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1388 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1389 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1390 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1393 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1394 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1395 compiler does not actually implement.
1397 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1399 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1400 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1401 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1402 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1403 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1404 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1407 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1408 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1410 * Improved configure script
1412 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1413 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1414 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1415 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1417 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1418 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1419 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1420 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1421 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1422 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1424 * Documentation improvements
1426 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1427 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1428 before submitting changes.
1430 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1431 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1432 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1433 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1434 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1436 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1437 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1438 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1439 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1440 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1441 around this problem.
1445 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1446 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1447 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1450 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1451 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1453 * New native hosts supported
1455 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1456 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1458 * New targets supported
1460 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1462 * New file formats supported
1464 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1465 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1469 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1471 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1472 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1474 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1475 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1476 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1478 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1479 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1481 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1482 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1483 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1486 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1487 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1488 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1489 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1490 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1492 * Internal improvements
1494 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1495 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1497 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1498 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1499 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1500 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1501 shared code that handles any of them.
1503 * New command line options
1505 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1509 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1510 General Public License.
1512 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1514 * Host/native/target split
1516 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1517 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1518 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1519 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1520 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1522 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1523 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1524 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1525 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1526 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1527 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1528 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1530 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1531 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1532 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1534 * New hosts supported
1536 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1537 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1538 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1540 * New targets supported
1542 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1543 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1545 * New native hosts supported
1547 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1548 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1549 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1551 * New file formats supported
1553 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1554 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1555 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1559 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1560 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1561 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1563 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1565 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1566 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1567 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1568 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1572 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1573 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1574 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1576 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1580 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1581 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1584 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1585 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1587 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1588 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1589 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1590 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1591 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1592 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1594 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1595 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1596 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1597 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1601 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1602 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1603 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1604 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1605 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1607 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1608 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1609 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1610 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1614 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1615 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1616 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1617 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1618 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1619 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1620 each instruction being stepped through.
1622 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1623 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1625 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1626 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1627 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1628 processor with a serial port.
1632 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1633 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1634 supported, and what files each one uses.
1638 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1639 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1640 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1641 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1643 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1644 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1645 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1646 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1650 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1651 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1652 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1653 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1654 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1655 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1657 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1660 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1662 * Better support for C++ function names
1664 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1665 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1666 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1667 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1668 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1670 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1671 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1672 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1673 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1674 for the list of formats.
1676 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1678 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1679 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1680 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1681 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1682 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1683 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1686 * New 'maintenance' command
1688 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1689 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1690 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1692 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1693 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1694 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1695 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1696 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1697 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1699 The following commands are new:
1701 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1702 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1703 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1705 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1707 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1708 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1709 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1710 read after argv processing.
1712 * New hosts supported
1714 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1716 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1718 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1719 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1720 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1721 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1722 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1725 * New targets supported
1727 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1729 * More smarts about finding #include files
1731 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1732 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1733 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1734 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1735 the one that contains your sources.
1737 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1738 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1739 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1741 * Interesting infernals change
1743 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1744 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1745 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1746 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1748 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1750 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1751 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1752 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1754 See the ChangeLog for details.
1756 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1758 * New machines supported (host and target)
1760 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1762 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1764 * New malloc package
1766 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1767 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1768 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1769 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1770 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1771 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1775 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1776 'help info proc' for details.
1778 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1780 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1781 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1784 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1786 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1787 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1788 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1789 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1790 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1791 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1793 * Cross byte order fixes
1795 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1796 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1798 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1800 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1801 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1802 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1803 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1804 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1805 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1806 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1807 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1808 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1809 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1811 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1812 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1813 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1814 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1816 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1817 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1818 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1821 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1823 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1824 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1825 shared across multiple host platforms.
1827 * longjmp() handling
1829 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1830 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1831 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1832 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1836 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1837 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1842 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1843 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1844 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1846 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1848 * New machines supported (host and target)
1850 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1852 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1853 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1855 * New machines supported (target)
1857 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1861 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1862 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1863 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1865 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1866 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1867 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1868 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1869 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1872 * New features for SVR4
1874 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1875 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1876 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1878 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1879 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1880 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1882 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1883 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1885 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1887 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1888 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1889 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1890 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1891 same code linked statically.
1895 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1896 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1897 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1898 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1899 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1900 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1904 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1905 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1906 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1909 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1911 * New machines supported (host and target)
1913 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1914 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1915 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1917 * Almost SCO Unix support
1919 We had hoped to support:
1920 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1921 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1922 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1923 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1925 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1927 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1928 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1929 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1930 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1935 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1936 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1937 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1941 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1942 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1943 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1945 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1947 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1948 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1949 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1951 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1952 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1953 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1954 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1957 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1958 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1959 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1960 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1963 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1964 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1967 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1968 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1969 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1972 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1974 * Improved configuration
1976 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1977 Porting BFD is simpler.
1981 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1982 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1983 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1984 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1988 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1990 * New host supported (not target)
1992 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1995 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1997 * Multiple source language support
1999 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2000 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2001 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2002 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2003 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2004 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2008 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2009 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2010 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2011 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2013 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2014 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2015 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2017 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2018 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2022 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2023 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2024 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2025 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2028 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2030 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2031 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2032 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2033 examining core files.
2037 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2040 * New machines supported (host and target)
2042 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2043 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2044 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2046 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2048 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2050 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2052 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2053 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2054 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2056 * New remote interfaces
2062 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2066 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2068 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2069 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2070 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2071 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2072 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2073 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2074 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2075 stub on the target system.
2077 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2079 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2080 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2081 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2083 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2084 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2087 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2089 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2090 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2092 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2093 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2094 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2096 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2097 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2098 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2099 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2101 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2102 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2103 it is already running. Default is ON.
2105 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2106 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2107 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2108 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2111 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2112 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2113 or the value of the environment variable
2116 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2117 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2120 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2121 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2122 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2124 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2125 history expansion will be performed on
2126 command line input. The default is OFF.
2128 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2129 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2130 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2132 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2133 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2134 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2137 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2138 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2139 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2142 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2143 ``set width'' instead.
2145 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2146 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2147 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2148 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2150 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2153 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2156 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2159 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2162 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2164 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2165 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2166 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2170 * Support for Shared Libraries
2172 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2173 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2174 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2175 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2176 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2177 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2178 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2179 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2181 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2182 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2183 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2185 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2190 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2191 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2192 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2193 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2194 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2195 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2197 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2199 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2201 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2202 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2203 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2206 * C++ multiple inheritance
2208 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2211 * C++ exception handling
2213 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2214 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2215 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2218 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2219 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2220 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2222 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2223 current stack frame.
2226 * Minor command changes
2228 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2229 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2230 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2232 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2233 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2234 frames without printing.
2236 * New directory command
2238 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2239 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2240 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2241 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2242 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2244 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2246 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2249 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2250 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2251 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2252 where the program that you are debugging will run.