1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
8 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
9 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
10 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
11 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
12 data, for more informative profiling results.
14 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
16 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
17 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
18 "mi1", can be enabled by sepcifying the option "-i=mi1".
20 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
23 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
24 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
25 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
26 in a subsequent -var-update.
28 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
30 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
31 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
32 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
35 * REMOVED configurations and files
38 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
39 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
40 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
41 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
42 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
43 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
45 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
46 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
47 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
48 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
49 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
50 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
52 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
54 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
55 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
56 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
57 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
58 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
60 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
62 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
64 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
65 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
66 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
67 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
68 shared libs like mad''.
70 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
72 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
73 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
74 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
75 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
77 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
79 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
80 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
83 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
84 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
86 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
87 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
89 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
90 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
91 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
92 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
94 * Multi-arched targets.
96 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
97 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
99 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
100 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
101 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
105 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
108 * New native configurations
110 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
111 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
112 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
113 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
115 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
117 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
118 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
119 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
122 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
123 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
124 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
125 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
126 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
127 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
128 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
129 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
130 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
131 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
133 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
134 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
138 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
140 * REMOVED configurations and files
142 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
143 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
144 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
145 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
146 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
148 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
150 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
152 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
153 commands. The default is 1024.
155 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
157 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
159 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
161 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
162 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
163 from a file into memory (restore).
165 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
167 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
168 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
169 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
171 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
179 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
180 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
181 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
183 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
184 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
185 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
187 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
188 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
189 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
191 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
192 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
193 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
195 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
197 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
199 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
200 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
201 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
202 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
203 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
204 (notably embedded) targets.
206 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
208 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
209 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
210 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
211 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
213 * New command line option
215 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
217 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
219 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
220 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
221 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
222 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
223 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
224 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
225 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
226 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
227 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
228 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
230 * Changes in ARM configurations.
232 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
233 configuration is fully multi-arch.
235 * New native configurations
237 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
238 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
239 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
240 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
244 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
246 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
248 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
249 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
250 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
253 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
254 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
255 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
256 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
257 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
259 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
261 * REMOVED configurations and files
263 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
265 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
266 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
267 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
268 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
269 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
270 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
271 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
272 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
273 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
274 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
275 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
277 * Changes to command line processing
279 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
280 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
282 * Changes to key bindings
284 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
286 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
288 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
290 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
293 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
295 Numerous documentation fixes.
297 Numerous testsuite fixes.
299 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
301 * New native configurations
303 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
304 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
305 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
306 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
308 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
312 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
314 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
316 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
318 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
319 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
320 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
321 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
322 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
324 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
325 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
326 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
327 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
328 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
329 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
330 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
331 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
333 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
334 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
336 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
337 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
338 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
341 * REMOVED configurations and files
343 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
344 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
346 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
350 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
352 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
353 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
358 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
360 * The MI enabled by default.
362 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
363 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
364 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
365 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
366 which is now deprecated.
368 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
370 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
371 main features are supported:
373 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
375 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
378 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
380 - a Pascal expression parser.
382 However, some important features are not yet supported.
384 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
386 - there are some problems with boolean types;
388 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
389 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
391 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
393 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
395 * Changes in completion.
397 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
398 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
399 users expect at the shell prompt.
401 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
402 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
403 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
404 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
405 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
406 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
407 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
409 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
411 * New platform-independent commands:
413 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
414 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
415 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
417 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
419 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
420 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
421 many threads as your system allows you to have.
423 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
425 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
426 multi-threaded programs though.
428 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
430 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
432 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
433 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
436 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
438 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
439 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
440 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
441 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
442 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
445 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
446 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
447 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
449 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
451 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
452 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
454 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
455 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
458 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
459 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
460 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
461 a given linear address.
463 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
464 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
465 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
467 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
469 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
471 * Changes in documentation.
473 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
474 Documentation License.
476 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
479 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
481 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
484 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
485 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
486 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
488 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
490 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
491 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
492 contents of this file.
496 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
498 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
500 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
502 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
503 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
504 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
505 greater level of detail.
507 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
509 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
510 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
511 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
514 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
516 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
517 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
518 machines ``out of the box''.
520 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
521 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
522 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
523 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
524 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
526 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
527 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
528 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
529 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
530 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
532 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
533 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
536 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
539 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
540 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
541 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
542 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
544 * New native configurations
546 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
547 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
551 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
552 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
553 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
554 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
556 * OBSOLETE configurations
558 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
559 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
561 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
564 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
565 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
566 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
567 be permanently REMOVED.
569 * Gould support removed
571 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
573 * New features for SVR4
575 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
576 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
577 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
579 * Many C++ enhancements
581 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
582 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
584 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
586 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
587 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
588 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
589 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
591 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
592 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
594 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
596 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
597 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
598 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
600 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
601 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
603 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
605 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
606 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
607 include ``set remote P-packet''.
609 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
611 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
612 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
613 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
615 * ``apropos'' command added.
617 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
618 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
619 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
623 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
624 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
625 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
626 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
627 enabled by configuring with:
629 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
631 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
633 * New native configurations
635 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
636 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
637 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
641 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
642 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
643 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
645 * OBSOLETE configurations
647 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
649 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
650 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
651 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
652 be permanently REMOVED.
656 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
657 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
658 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
659 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
660 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
661 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
662 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
667 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
669 * set extension-language
671 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
672 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
673 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
674 set extension-language .c c++
675 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
676 and their associated languages.
678 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
680 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
681 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
682 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
686 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
687 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
689 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
690 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
692 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
693 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
694 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
695 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
696 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
697 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
698 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
699 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
701 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
702 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
703 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
704 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
708 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
709 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
710 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
711 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
712 for xdb and dbx commands.
716 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
717 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
718 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
720 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
721 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
722 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
724 * Debugging across forks
726 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
731 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
732 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
733 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
735 * GDB remote protocol additions
737 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
738 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
739 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
740 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
742 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
743 full 64-bit address. The command
745 set remoteaddresssize 32
747 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
748 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
751 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
752 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
754 maint packet heythere
756 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
757 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
760 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
761 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
762 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
764 * Tracing can collect general expressions
766 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
767 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
768 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
770 * mask-address variable for Mips
772 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
773 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
774 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
776 * Higher serial baud rates
778 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
779 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
780 to achieve all of these rates.)
784 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
785 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
788 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
790 * New native configurations
792 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
793 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
794 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
795 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
796 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
797 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
798 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
802 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
803 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
804 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
805 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
806 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
807 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
808 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
809 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
810 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
811 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
812 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
814 * New debugging protocols
816 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
817 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
818 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
819 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
820 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
821 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
825 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
826 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
831 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
832 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
834 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
836 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
837 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
838 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
840 * Live range splitting
842 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
843 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
844 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
848 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
849 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
853 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
854 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
855 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
860 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
865 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
866 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
867 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
868 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
869 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
870 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
874 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
875 the symbol at the specified address.
879 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
880 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
881 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
882 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
883 file tracepoint.c for more details.
887 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
888 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
889 of most MIPS variants.
893 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
894 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
895 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
899 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
900 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
901 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
902 the possible architectures.
904 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
906 * New native configurations
908 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
909 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
910 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
911 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
912 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
913 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
917 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
918 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
919 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
920 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
921 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
923 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
927 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
928 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
929 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
930 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
931 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
935 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
937 * Windows 95/NT native
939 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
940 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
941 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
942 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
943 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
945 * dont-repeat command
947 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
948 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
949 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
950 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
952 * Send break instead of ^C
954 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
955 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
956 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
958 * Remote protocol timeout
960 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
961 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
962 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
964 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
966 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
967 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
968 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
969 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
970 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
972 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
973 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
974 automatically on hpux10.
976 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
978 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
980 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
982 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
983 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
984 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
985 every character. The default value is 1050.
987 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
989 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
990 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
991 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
992 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
993 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
994 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
996 * Speedups for remote debugging
998 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
999 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1000 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1002 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1004 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1005 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1007 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1009 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1011 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1012 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1014 * Remote targets use caching
1016 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1017 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1018 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1019 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1020 off' turns the the data cache off.
1022 * Remote targets may have threads
1024 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1025 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1026 gdb/remote.c for details.
1030 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1031 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1032 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1033 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1034 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1035 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1036 sequence is something like
1038 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1040 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1044 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1045 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1046 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1047 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1048 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1049 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1050 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1051 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1055 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1056 but does simplify configuration and building.
1060 GDB now supports hpux10.
1062 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1064 * New native configurations
1066 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1067 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1068 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1069 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1073 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1074 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1075 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1076 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1079 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1081 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1082 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1083 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1084 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1085 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1087 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1089 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1090 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1093 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1095 To execute the command use:
1098 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1099 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1100 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1102 * New `if' and `while' commands
1104 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1105 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1106 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1107 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1108 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1109 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1110 if the expression is zero.
1112 * Fortran source language mode
1114 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1115 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1116 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1117 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1120 * Better HPUX support
1122 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1123 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1124 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1125 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1126 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1132 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1133 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1139 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1140 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1143 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1144 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1146 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1148 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1149 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1150 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1151 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1152 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1153 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1155 * New DOS host serial code
1157 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1158 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1161 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1163 * New "complete" command
1165 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1166 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1168 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1170 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1171 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1173 * Breakpoint hit counts
1175 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1176 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1177 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1178 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1179 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1182 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1184 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1185 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1186 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1188 * Shared library breakpoints
1190 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1191 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1193 * Hardware watchpoints
1195 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1196 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1198 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1202 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1203 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1205 * Improved Irix 5 support
1207 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1209 * Improved HPPA support
1211 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1213 * New native configurations
1215 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1216 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1217 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1218 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1222 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1223 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1226 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1228 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1229 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1233 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1234 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1236 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1238 * Irix 5 is now supported
1242 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1243 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1244 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1245 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1246 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1249 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1251 * User visible changes:
1255 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1256 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1257 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1258 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1259 debugging info for the mips target).
1261 * DEC Alpha native support
1263 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1264 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1265 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1266 Alpha-specific notes.
1268 * Preliminary thread implementation
1270 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1272 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1274 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1275 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1278 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1280 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1281 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1282 call methods, ...etc.
1284 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1286 * User visible changes:
1288 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1289 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1290 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1291 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1293 Filename completion now works.
1295 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1296 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1297 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1299 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1300 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1301 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1302 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1303 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1307 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1308 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1311 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1315 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1316 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1317 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1321 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1322 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1323 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1324 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1325 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1329 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1330 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1331 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1333 * New targets supported
1335 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1336 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1337 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1338 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1339 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1341 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1342 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1343 GO32 memory extender.
1345 * New remote protocols
1347 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1349 * New source languages supported
1351 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1352 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1353 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1356 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1358 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1360 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1361 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1362 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1363 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1364 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1365 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1367 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1369 * Faster and better demangling
1371 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1372 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1373 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1374 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1375 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1376 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1379 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1380 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1381 compiler does not actually implement.
1383 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1385 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1386 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1387 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1388 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1389 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1390 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1393 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1394 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1396 * Improved configure script
1398 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1399 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1400 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1401 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1403 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1404 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1405 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1406 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1407 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1408 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1410 * Documentation improvements
1412 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1413 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1414 before submitting changes.
1416 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1417 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1418 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1419 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1420 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1422 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1423 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1424 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1425 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1426 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1427 around this problem.
1431 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1432 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1433 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1436 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1437 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1439 * New native hosts supported
1441 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1442 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1444 * New targets supported
1446 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1448 * New file formats supported
1450 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1451 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1455 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1457 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1458 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1460 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1461 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1462 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1464 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1465 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1467 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1468 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1469 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1472 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1473 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1474 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1475 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1476 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1478 * Internal improvements
1480 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1481 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1483 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1484 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1485 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1486 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1487 shared code that handles any of them.
1489 * New command line options
1491 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1495 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1496 General Public License.
1498 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1500 * Host/native/target split
1502 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1503 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1504 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1505 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1506 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1508 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1509 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1510 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1511 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1512 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1513 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1514 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1516 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1517 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1518 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1520 * New hosts supported
1522 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1523 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1524 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1526 * New targets supported
1528 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1529 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1531 * New native hosts supported
1533 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1534 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1535 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1537 * New file formats supported
1539 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1540 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1541 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1545 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1546 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1547 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1549 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1551 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1552 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1553 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1554 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1558 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1559 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1560 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1562 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1566 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1567 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1570 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1571 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1573 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1574 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1575 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1576 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1577 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1578 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1580 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1581 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1582 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1583 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1587 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1588 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1589 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1590 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1591 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1593 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1594 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1595 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1596 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1600 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1601 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1602 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1603 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1604 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1605 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1606 each instruction being stepped through.
1608 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1609 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1611 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1612 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1613 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1614 processor with a serial port.
1618 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1619 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1620 supported, and what files each one uses.
1624 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1625 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1626 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1627 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1629 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1630 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1631 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1632 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1636 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1637 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1638 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1639 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1640 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1641 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1643 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1646 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1648 * Better support for C++ function names
1650 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1651 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1652 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1653 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1654 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1656 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1657 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1658 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1659 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1660 for the list of formats.
1662 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1664 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1665 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1666 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1667 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1668 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1669 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1672 * New 'maintenance' command
1674 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1675 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1676 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1678 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1679 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1680 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1681 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1682 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1683 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1685 The following commands are new:
1687 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1688 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1689 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1691 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1693 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1694 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1695 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1696 read after argv processing.
1698 * New hosts supported
1700 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1702 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1704 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1705 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1706 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1707 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1708 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1711 * New targets supported
1713 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1715 * More smarts about finding #include files
1717 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1718 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1719 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1720 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1721 the one that contains your sources.
1723 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1724 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1725 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1727 * Interesting infernals change
1729 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1730 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1731 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1732 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1734 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1736 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1737 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1738 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1740 See the ChangeLog for details.
1742 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1744 * New machines supported (host and target)
1746 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1748 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1750 * New malloc package
1752 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1753 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1754 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1755 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1756 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1757 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1761 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1762 'help info proc' for details.
1764 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1766 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1767 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1770 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1772 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1773 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1774 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1775 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1776 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1777 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1779 * Cross byte order fixes
1781 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1782 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1784 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1786 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1787 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1788 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1789 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1790 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1791 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1792 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1793 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1794 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1795 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1797 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1798 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1799 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1800 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1802 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1803 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1804 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1807 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1809 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1810 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1811 shared across multiple host platforms.
1813 * longjmp() handling
1815 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1816 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1817 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1818 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1822 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1823 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1828 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1829 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1830 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1832 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1834 * New machines supported (host and target)
1836 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1838 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1839 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1841 * New machines supported (target)
1843 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1847 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1848 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1849 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1851 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1852 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1853 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1854 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1855 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1858 * New features for SVR4
1860 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1861 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1862 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1864 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1865 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1866 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1868 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1869 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1871 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1873 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1874 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1875 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1876 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1877 same code linked statically.
1881 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1882 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1883 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1884 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1885 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1886 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1890 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1891 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1892 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1895 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1897 * New machines supported (host and target)
1899 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1900 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1901 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1903 * Almost SCO Unix support
1905 We had hoped to support:
1906 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1907 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1908 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1909 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1911 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1913 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1914 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1915 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1916 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1921 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1922 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1923 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1927 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1928 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1929 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1931 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1933 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1934 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1935 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1937 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1938 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1939 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1940 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1943 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1944 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1945 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1946 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1949 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1950 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1953 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1954 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1955 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1958 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1960 * Improved configuration
1962 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1963 Porting BFD is simpler.
1967 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1968 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1969 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1970 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1974 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1976 * New host supported (not target)
1978 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1981 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1983 * Multiple source language support
1985 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1986 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1987 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1988 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1989 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1990 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1994 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1995 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1996 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1997 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1999 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2000 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2001 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2003 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2004 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2008 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2009 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2010 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2011 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2014 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2016 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2017 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2018 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2019 examining core files.
2023 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2026 * New machines supported (host and target)
2028 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2029 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2030 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2032 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2034 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2036 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2038 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2039 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2040 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2042 * New remote interfaces
2048 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2052 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2054 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2055 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2056 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2057 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2058 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2059 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2060 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2061 stub on the target system.
2063 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2065 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2066 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2067 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2069 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2070 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2073 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2075 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2076 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2078 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2079 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2080 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2082 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2083 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2084 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2085 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2087 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2088 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2089 it is already running. Default is ON.
2091 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2092 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2093 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2094 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2097 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2098 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2099 or the value of the environment variable
2102 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2103 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2106 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2107 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2108 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2110 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2111 history expansion will be performed on
2112 command line input. The default is OFF.
2114 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2115 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2116 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2118 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2119 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2120 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2123 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2124 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2125 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2128 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2129 ``set width'' instead.
2131 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2132 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2133 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2134 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2136 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2139 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2142 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2145 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2148 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2150 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2151 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2152 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2156 * Support for Shared Libraries
2158 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2159 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2160 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2161 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2162 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2163 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2164 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2165 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2167 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2168 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2169 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2171 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2176 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2177 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2178 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2179 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2180 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2181 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2183 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2185 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2187 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2188 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2189 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2192 * C++ multiple inheritance
2194 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2197 * C++ exception handling
2199 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2200 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2201 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2204 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2205 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2206 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2208 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2209 current stack frame.
2212 * Minor command changes
2214 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2215 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2216 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2218 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2219 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2220 frames without printing.
2222 * New directory command
2224 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2225 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2226 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2227 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2228 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2230 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2232 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2235 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2236 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2237 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2238 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob