1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.7
6 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
9 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
10 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
11 and in inlined functions.
13 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
15 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
17 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
18 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
19 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
21 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
22 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
23 -Bsymbolic linker option.
25 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
26 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
29 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
30 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
32 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
33 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
35 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
37 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
38 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
39 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
41 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
42 automatically displayed as character or string data.
44 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
45 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
48 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
49 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
50 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
52 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
55 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
56 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
57 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
59 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
61 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
63 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
64 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
65 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
67 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
68 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
70 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
71 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
72 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
73 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
74 Windows and SymbianOS).
76 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
77 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
79 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
80 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
86 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
87 when debugging using remote targets.
89 set mem inaccessible-by-default
90 show mem inaccessible-by-default
91 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
92 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
93 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
94 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
95 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
97 set breakpoint auto-hw
98 show breakpoint auto-hw
99 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
100 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
101 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
102 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
103 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
104 including "next" and "finish".
107 catch exception unhandled
108 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
111 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
115 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
116 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
117 an alias to "set sysroot".
120 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
121 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
124 * New native configurations
126 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
131 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
132 not query the target for its built-in description.
136 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
137 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
138 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
143 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
144 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
147 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
152 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
153 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
155 qXfer:libraries:read:
156 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
157 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
158 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
159 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
163 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
172 i[34567]86-*-netware*
173 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
174 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
176 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
179 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
180 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
189 * Other removed features
196 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
203 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
208 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
209 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
214 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
215 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
217 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
219 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
220 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
221 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
222 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
226 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
227 in debugging information.
231 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
232 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
234 set mips stack-arg-size
235 set mips saved-gpreg-size
237 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
239 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
244 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
246 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
247 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
248 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
250 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
251 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
254 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
255 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
257 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
258 stub provides the required support.
260 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
261 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
266 unset substitute-path
268 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
269 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
270 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
271 between compilation and debugging.
275 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
276 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
277 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
281 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
283 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
284 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
286 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
291 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
292 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
293 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
294 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
298 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
299 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
301 qXfer:memory-map:read:
302 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
303 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
308 Erase and program a flash memory device.
310 * Removed remote packets
313 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
314 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
316 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
320 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
322 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
326 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
327 only if it doesn't already have a value.
329 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
331 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
333 restart <n> Return the program state to a
334 previously saved state.
336 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
338 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
340 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
341 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
343 info forks List forks of the user program that
344 are available to be debugged.
346 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
347 forks of the user program that are
348 available to be debugged.
350 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
351 that are available to be debugged (and
352 kill the forked process).
354 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
355 that are available to be debugged (and
356 allow the process to continue).
360 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
362 * Improved Windows host support
364 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
365 native console support, and remote communications using either
366 network sockets or serial ports.
368 * Improved Modula-2 language support
370 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
371 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
372 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
373 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
374 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
375 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
379 The ARM rdi-share module.
381 The Netware NLM debug server.
383 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
385 * New native configurations
387 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
388 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
392 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
394 * New command line options
396 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
397 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
398 the child (debugged) program exited with.
399 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
400 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
401 specified multiple times and in conjunction
402 with the --command (-x) option.
404 * Deprecated commands removed
406 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
410 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
411 othernames set arm disassembler
412 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
413 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
414 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
417 * New BSD user-level threads support
419 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
420 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
423 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
424 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
425 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
427 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
428 are not yet supported.
430 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
431 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
433 * REMOVED configurations and files
435 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
436 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
437 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
439 * New "set print array-indexes" command
441 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
442 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
445 * VAX floating point support
447 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
449 * User-defined command support
451 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
452 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
453 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
455 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
457 * New command line option
459 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
462 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
464 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
465 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
466 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
467 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
468 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
470 * Internationalization
472 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
473 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
474 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
478 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
479 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
480 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
482 * New native configurations
484 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
488 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
489 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
491 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
493 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
494 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
495 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
498 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
499 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
500 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
512 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
513 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
515 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
517 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
518 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
519 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
529 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
531 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
533 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
534 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
537 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
539 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
540 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
541 IRIX long double values).
545 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
546 command. This problem has been fixed.
548 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
550 * Fix for ``many threads''
552 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
553 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
556 ptrace: No such process.
557 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
559 This problem has been fixed.
561 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
563 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
566 * New ``start'' command.
568 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
570 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
572 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
573 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
574 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
576 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
577 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
578 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
579 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
580 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
581 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
582 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
583 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
584 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
586 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
588 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
589 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
590 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
591 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
592 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
594 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
595 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
596 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
598 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
600 * New native configurations
602 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
603 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
604 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
605 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
606 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
607 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
608 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
610 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
612 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
613 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
614 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
615 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
616 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
617 work, was also included.
619 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
620 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
630 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
631 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
633 * REMOVED configurations and files
635 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
636 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
637 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
638 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
639 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
640 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
641 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
642 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
643 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
645 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
647 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
649 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
651 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
652 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
653 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
654 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
657 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
659 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
660 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
661 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
662 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
663 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
664 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
667 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
669 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
671 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
672 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
673 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
675 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
677 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
678 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
680 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
682 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
683 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
684 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
686 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
688 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
689 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
691 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
693 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
694 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
695 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
697 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
699 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
700 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
701 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
703 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
705 * Removed --with-mmalloc
707 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
708 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
710 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
712 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
713 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
714 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
715 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
717 * Revised SPARC target
719 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
720 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
721 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
722 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
723 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
727 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
728 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
729 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
732 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
734 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
735 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
738 * C++ nested types and namespaces
740 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
741 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
742 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
743 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
744 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
745 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
746 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
747 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
748 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
750 * New native configurations
752 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
753 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
754 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
755 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
756 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
758 * New debugging protocols
760 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
762 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
764 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
765 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
766 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
768 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
770 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
771 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
772 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
775 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
776 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
777 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
778 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
779 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
780 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
781 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
782 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
783 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
785 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
787 * REMOVED configurations and files
789 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
790 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
791 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
792 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
793 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
794 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
795 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
796 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
797 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
798 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
799 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
800 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
801 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
802 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
803 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
804 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
805 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
807 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
811 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
814 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
816 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
817 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
818 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
821 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
822 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
827 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
828 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
829 remote protocol documentation for details.
831 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
833 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
834 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
835 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
838 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
840 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
841 per-thread variables.
843 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
845 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
846 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
848 * Separate debug info.
850 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
851 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
852 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
853 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
854 and optional debug files.
856 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
858 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
859 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
862 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
863 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
867 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
868 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
869 considered "useable".
871 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
873 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
874 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
877 * GDB supports logging output to a file
879 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
880 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
882 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
884 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
885 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
888 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
890 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
891 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
895 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
896 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
897 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
898 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
899 data, for more informative profiling results.
901 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
903 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
904 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
905 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
907 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
910 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
911 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
912 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
913 in a subsequent -var-update.
915 * New native configurations.
917 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
919 * Multi-arched targets.
921 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
922 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
924 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
926 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
927 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
928 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
931 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
932 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
933 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
934 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
935 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
936 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
937 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
938 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
939 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
940 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
941 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
942 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
944 * REMOVED configurations and files
947 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
948 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
949 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
950 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
951 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
952 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
954 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
955 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
956 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
957 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
958 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
959 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
961 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
963 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
964 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
965 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
966 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
967 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
969 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
971 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
973 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
974 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
975 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
976 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
977 shared libs like mad''.
979 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
981 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
982 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
983 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
984 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
986 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
988 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
989 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
992 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
993 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
995 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
996 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
998 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
999 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1000 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1001 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1003 * Multi-arched targets.
1005 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1006 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1008 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1009 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1010 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1014 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1017 * New native configurations
1019 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1020 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1021 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1022 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1024 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1026 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1027 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1028 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1029 permanently REMOVED.
1031 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1032 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1033 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1034 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1035 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1036 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1037 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1038 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1039 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1040 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1042 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1043 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1045 * OBSOLETE languages
1047 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1049 * REMOVED configurations and files
1051 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1052 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1053 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1054 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1055 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1057 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1059 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1061 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1062 commands. The default is 1024.
1064 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1066 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1068 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1070 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1071 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1072 from a file into memory (restore).
1074 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1076 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1077 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1078 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1080 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1088 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1089 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1090 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1092 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1093 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1094 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1096 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1097 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1098 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1100 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1101 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1102 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1104 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1106 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1108 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1109 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1110 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1111 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1112 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1113 (notably embedded) targets.
1115 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1117 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1118 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1119 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1120 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1122 * New command line option
1124 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1126 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1128 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1129 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1130 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1131 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1132 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1133 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1134 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1135 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1136 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1137 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1139 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1141 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1142 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1144 * New native configurations
1146 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1147 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1148 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1149 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1153 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1155 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1157 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1158 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1159 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1160 permanently REMOVED.
1162 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1163 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1164 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1165 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1166 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1168 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1170 * REMOVED configurations and files
1172 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1174 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1175 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1176 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1177 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1178 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1179 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1180 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1181 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1182 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1183 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1184 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1186 * Changes to command line processing
1188 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1189 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1191 * Changes to key bindings
1193 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1195 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1197 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1199 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1202 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1204 Numerous documentation fixes.
1206 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1208 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1210 * New native configurations
1212 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1213 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1214 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1215 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1216 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1217 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1221 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1223 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1225 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1227 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1228 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1229 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1230 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1231 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1233 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1234 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1235 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1236 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1237 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1238 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1239 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1240 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1242 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1243 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1245 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1246 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1247 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1248 permanently REMOVED.
1250 * REMOVED configurations and files
1252 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1253 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1255 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1259 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1261 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1262 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1267 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1269 * The MI enabled by default.
1271 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1272 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1273 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1274 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1275 which is now deprecated.
1277 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1279 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1280 main features are supported:
1282 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1284 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1287 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1289 - a Pascal expression parser.
1291 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1293 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1295 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1297 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1298 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1300 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1302 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1304 * Changes in completion.
1306 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1307 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1308 users expect at the shell prompt.
1310 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1311 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1312 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1313 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1314 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1315 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1316 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1318 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1320 * New platform-independent commands:
1322 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1323 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1324 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1326 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1328 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1329 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1330 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1332 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1334 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1335 multi-threaded programs though.
1337 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1339 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1341 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1342 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1345 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1347 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1348 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1349 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1350 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1351 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1354 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1355 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1356 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1358 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1360 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1361 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1363 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1364 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1367 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1368 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1369 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1370 a given linear address.
1372 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1373 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1374 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1376 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1378 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1380 * Changes in documentation.
1382 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1383 Documentation License.
1385 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1388 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1390 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1393 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1394 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1395 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1397 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1399 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1400 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1401 contents of this file.
1405 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1407 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1409 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1411 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1412 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1413 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1414 greater level of detail.
1416 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1418 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1419 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1420 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1423 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1425 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1426 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1427 machines ``out of the box''.
1429 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1430 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1431 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1432 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1433 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1435 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1436 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1437 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1438 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1439 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1441 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1442 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1445 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1448 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1449 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1450 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1451 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1453 * New native configurations
1455 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1456 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1460 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1461 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1462 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1463 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1465 * OBSOLETE configurations
1467 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1468 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1470 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1473 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1474 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1475 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1476 be permanently REMOVED.
1478 * Gould support removed
1480 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1482 * New features for SVR4
1484 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1485 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1486 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1488 * Many C++ enhancements
1490 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1491 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1493 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1495 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1496 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1497 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1498 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1500 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1501 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1503 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1505 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1506 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1507 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1509 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1510 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1512 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1514 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1515 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1516 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1518 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1520 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1521 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1522 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1524 * ``apropos'' command added.
1526 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1527 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1528 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1532 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1533 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1534 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1535 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1536 enabled by configuring with:
1538 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1540 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1542 * New native configurations
1544 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1545 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1546 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1550 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1551 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1552 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1554 * OBSOLETE configurations
1556 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1558 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1559 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1560 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1561 be permanently REMOVED.
1565 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1566 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1567 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1568 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1569 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1570 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1571 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1576 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1578 * set extension-language
1580 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1581 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1582 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1583 set extension-language .c c++
1584 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1585 and their associated languages.
1587 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1589 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1590 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1591 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1595 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1596 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1598 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1599 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1601 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1602 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1603 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1604 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1605 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1606 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1607 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1608 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1610 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1611 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1612 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1613 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1617 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1618 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1619 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1620 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1621 for xdb and dbx commands.
1625 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1626 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1627 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1629 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1630 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1631 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1633 * Debugging across forks
1635 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1640 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1641 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1642 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1644 * GDB remote protocol additions
1646 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1647 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1648 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1649 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1651 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1652 full 64-bit address. The command
1654 set remoteaddresssize 32
1656 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1657 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1660 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1661 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1663 maint packet heythere
1665 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1666 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1669 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1670 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1671 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1673 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1675 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1676 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1677 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1679 * mask-address variable for Mips
1681 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1682 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1683 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1685 * Higher serial baud rates
1687 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1688 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1689 to achieve all of these rates.)
1693 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1694 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1697 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1699 * New native configurations
1701 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1702 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1703 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1704 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1705 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1706 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1707 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1711 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1712 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1713 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1714 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1715 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1716 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1717 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1718 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1719 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1720 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1721 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1723 * New debugging protocols
1725 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1726 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1727 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1728 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1729 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1730 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1734 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1735 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1740 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1741 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1743 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1745 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1746 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1747 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1749 * Live range splitting
1751 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1752 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1753 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1757 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1758 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1762 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1763 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1764 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1769 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1774 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1775 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1776 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1777 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1778 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1779 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1783 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1784 the symbol at the specified address.
1788 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1789 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1790 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1791 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1792 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1796 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1797 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1798 of most MIPS variants.
1802 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1803 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1804 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1808 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1809 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1810 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1811 the possible architectures.
1813 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1815 * New native configurations
1817 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1818 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1819 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1820 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1821 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1822 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1826 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1827 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1828 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1829 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1830 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1832 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1836 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1837 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1838 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1839 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1840 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1844 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1846 * Windows 95/NT native
1848 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1849 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1850 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1851 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1852 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1854 * dont-repeat command
1856 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1857 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1858 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1859 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1861 * Send break instead of ^C
1863 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1864 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1865 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1867 * Remote protocol timeout
1869 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1870 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1871 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1873 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1875 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1876 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1877 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1878 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1879 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1881 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1882 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1883 automatically on hpux10.
1885 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1887 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1889 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1891 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1892 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1893 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1894 every character. The default value is 1050.
1896 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1898 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1899 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1900 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1901 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1902 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1903 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1905 * Speedups for remote debugging
1907 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1908 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1909 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1911 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1913 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1914 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1916 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1918 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1920 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1921 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1923 * Remote targets use caching
1925 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1926 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1927 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1928 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1929 off' turns the the data cache off.
1931 * Remote targets may have threads
1933 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1934 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1935 gdb/remote.c for details.
1939 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1940 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1941 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1942 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1943 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1944 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1945 sequence is something like
1947 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1949 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1953 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1954 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1955 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1956 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1957 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1958 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1959 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1960 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1964 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1965 but does simplify configuration and building.
1969 GDB now supports hpux10.
1971 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1973 * New native configurations
1975 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1976 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1977 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1978 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1982 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1983 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1984 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1985 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1988 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1990 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1991 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1992 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1993 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1994 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1996 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1998 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1999 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2002 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2004 To execute the command use:
2007 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2008 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2009 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2011 * New `if' and `while' commands
2013 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2014 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2015 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2016 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2017 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2018 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2019 if the expression is zero.
2021 * Fortran source language mode
2023 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2024 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2025 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2026 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2029 * Better HPUX support
2031 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2032 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2033 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2034 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2035 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2041 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2042 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2048 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2049 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2052 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2053 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2055 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2057 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2058 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2059 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2060 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2061 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2062 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2064 * New DOS host serial code
2066 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2067 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2070 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2072 * New "complete" command
2074 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2075 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2077 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2079 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2080 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2082 * Breakpoint hit counts
2084 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2085 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2086 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2087 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2088 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2091 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2093 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2094 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2095 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2097 * Shared library breakpoints
2099 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2100 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2102 * Hardware watchpoints
2104 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2105 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2107 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2111 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2112 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2114 * Improved Irix 5 support
2116 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2118 * Improved HPPA support
2120 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2122 * New native configurations
2124 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2125 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2126 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2127 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2131 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2132 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2135 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2137 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2138 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2142 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2143 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2145 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2147 * Irix 5 is now supported
2151 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2152 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2153 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2154 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2155 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2158 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2160 * User visible changes:
2164 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2165 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2166 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2167 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2168 debugging info for the mips target).
2170 * DEC Alpha native support
2172 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2173 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2174 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2175 Alpha-specific notes.
2177 * Preliminary thread implementation
2179 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2181 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2183 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2184 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2187 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2189 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2190 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2191 call methods, ...etc.
2193 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2195 * User visible changes:
2197 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2198 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2199 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2200 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2202 Filename completion now works.
2204 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2205 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2206 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2208 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2209 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2210 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2211 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2212 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2216 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2217 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2220 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2224 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2225 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2226 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2230 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2231 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2232 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2233 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2234 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2238 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2239 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2240 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2242 * New targets supported
2244 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2245 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2246 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2247 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2248 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2250 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2251 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2252 GO32 memory extender.
2254 * New remote protocols
2256 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2258 * New source languages supported
2260 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2261 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2262 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2265 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2267 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2269 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2270 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2271 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2272 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2273 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2274 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2276 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2278 * Faster and better demangling
2280 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2281 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2282 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2283 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2284 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2285 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2288 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2289 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2290 compiler does not actually implement.
2292 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2294 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2295 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2296 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2297 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2298 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2299 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2302 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2303 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2305 * Improved configure script
2307 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2308 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2309 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2310 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2312 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2313 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2314 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2315 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2316 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2317 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2319 * Documentation improvements
2321 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2322 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2323 before submitting changes.
2325 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2326 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2327 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2328 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2329 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2331 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2332 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2333 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2334 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2335 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2336 around this problem.
2340 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2341 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2342 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2345 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2346 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2348 * New native hosts supported
2350 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2351 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2353 * New targets supported
2355 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2357 * New file formats supported
2359 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2360 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2364 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2366 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2367 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2369 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2370 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2371 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2373 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2374 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2376 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2377 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2378 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2381 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2382 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2383 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2384 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2385 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2387 * Internal improvements
2389 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2390 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2392 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2393 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2394 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2395 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2396 shared code that handles any of them.
2398 * New command line options
2400 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2404 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2405 General Public License.
2407 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2409 * Host/native/target split
2411 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2412 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2413 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2414 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2415 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2417 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2418 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2419 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2420 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2421 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2422 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2423 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2425 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2426 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2427 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2429 * New hosts supported
2431 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2432 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2433 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2435 * New targets supported
2437 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2438 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2440 * New native hosts supported
2442 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2443 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2444 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2446 * New file formats supported
2448 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2449 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2450 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2454 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2455 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2456 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2458 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2460 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2461 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2462 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2463 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2467 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2468 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2469 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2471 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2475 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2476 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2479 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2480 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2482 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2483 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2484 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2485 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2486 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2487 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2489 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2490 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2491 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2492 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2496 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2497 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2498 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2499 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2500 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2502 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2503 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2504 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2505 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2509 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2510 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2511 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2512 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2513 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2514 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2515 each instruction being stepped through.
2517 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2518 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2520 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2521 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2522 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2523 processor with a serial port.
2527 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2528 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2529 supported, and what files each one uses.
2533 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2534 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2535 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2536 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2538 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2539 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2540 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2541 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2545 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2546 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2547 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2548 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2549 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2550 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2552 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2555 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2557 * Better support for C++ function names
2559 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2560 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2561 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2562 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2563 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2565 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2566 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2567 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2568 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2569 for the list of formats.
2571 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2573 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2574 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2575 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2576 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2577 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2578 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2581 * New 'maintenance' command
2583 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2584 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2585 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2587 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2588 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2589 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2590 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2591 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2592 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2594 The following commands are new:
2596 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2597 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2598 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2600 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2602 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2603 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2604 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2605 read after argv processing.
2607 * New hosts supported
2609 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2611 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2613 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2614 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2615 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2616 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2617 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2620 * New targets supported
2622 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2624 * More smarts about finding #include files
2626 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2627 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2628 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2629 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2630 the one that contains your sources.
2632 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2633 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2634 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2636 * Interesting infernals change
2638 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2639 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2640 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2641 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2643 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2645 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2646 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2647 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2649 See the ChangeLog for details.
2651 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2653 * New machines supported (host and target)
2655 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2657 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2659 * New malloc package
2661 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2662 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2663 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2664 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2665 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2666 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2670 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2671 'help info proc' for details.
2673 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2675 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2676 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2679 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2681 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2682 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2683 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2684 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2685 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2686 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2688 * Cross byte order fixes
2690 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2691 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2693 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2695 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2696 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2697 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2698 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2699 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2700 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2701 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2702 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2703 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2704 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2706 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2707 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2708 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2709 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2711 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2712 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2713 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2716 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2718 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2719 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2720 shared across multiple host platforms.
2722 * longjmp() handling
2724 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2725 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2726 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2727 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2731 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2732 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2737 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2738 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2739 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2741 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2743 * New machines supported (host and target)
2745 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2747 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2748 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2750 * New machines supported (target)
2752 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2756 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2757 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2758 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2760 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2761 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2762 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2763 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2764 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2767 * New features for SVR4
2769 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2770 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2771 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2773 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2774 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2775 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2777 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2778 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2780 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2782 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2783 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2784 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2785 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2786 same code linked statically.
2790 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2791 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2792 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2793 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2794 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2795 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2799 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2800 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2801 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2804 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2806 * New machines supported (host and target)
2808 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2809 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2810 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2812 * Almost SCO Unix support
2814 We had hoped to support:
2815 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2816 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2817 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2818 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2820 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2822 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2823 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2824 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2825 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2830 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2831 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2832 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2836 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2837 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2838 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2840 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2842 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2843 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2844 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2846 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2847 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2848 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2849 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2852 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2853 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2854 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2855 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2858 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2859 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2862 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2863 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2864 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2867 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2869 * Improved configuration
2871 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2872 Porting BFD is simpler.
2876 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2877 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2878 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2879 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2883 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2885 * New host supported (not target)
2887 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2890 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2892 * Multiple source language support
2894 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2895 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2896 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2897 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2898 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2899 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2903 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2904 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2905 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2906 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2908 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2909 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2910 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2912 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2913 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2917 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2918 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2919 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2920 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2923 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2925 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2926 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2927 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2928 examining core files.
2932 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2935 * New machines supported (host and target)
2937 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2938 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2939 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2941 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2943 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2945 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2947 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2948 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2949 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2951 * New remote interfaces
2957 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2961 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2963 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2964 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2965 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2966 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2967 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2968 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2969 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2970 stub on the target system.
2972 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2974 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2975 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2976 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2978 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2979 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2982 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2984 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2985 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2987 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2988 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2989 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2991 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2992 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2993 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2994 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2996 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2997 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2998 it is already running. Default is ON.
3000 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3001 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3002 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3003 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3006 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3007 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3008 or the value of the environment variable
3011 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3012 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3015 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3016 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3017 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3019 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3020 history expansion will be performed on
3021 command line input. The default is OFF.
3023 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3024 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3025 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3027 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3028 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3029 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3032 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3033 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3034 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3037 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3038 ``set width'' instead.
3040 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3041 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3042 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3043 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3045 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3048 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3051 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3054 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3057 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3059 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3060 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3061 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3065 * Support for Shared Libraries
3067 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3068 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3069 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3070 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3071 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3072 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3073 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3074 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3076 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3077 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3078 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3080 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3085 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3086 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3087 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3088 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3089 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3090 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3092 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3094 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3096 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3097 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3098 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3101 * C++ multiple inheritance
3103 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3106 * C++ exception handling
3108 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3109 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3110 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3113 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3114 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3115 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3117 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3118 current stack frame.
3121 * Minor command changes
3123 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3124 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3125 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3127 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3128 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3129 frames without printing.
3131 * New directory command
3133 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3134 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3135 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3136 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3137 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3139 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3141 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3144 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3145 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3146 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3147 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob