1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.0
10 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
11 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
12 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
13 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
14 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
18 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
19 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
24 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
25 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
29 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
37 * Multi-program debugging.
39 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
40 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
41 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
42 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
43 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
44 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
45 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
46 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
48 * New tracing features
50 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
52 ** Trace state variables
54 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
55 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
56 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
57 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
58 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
59 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
60 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
61 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
62 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
63 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
67 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
68 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
69 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
70 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
71 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
72 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
73 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
74 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
75 the regular trace command.
77 ** Disconnected tracing
79 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
80 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
81 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
82 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
83 connection is lost unexpectedly.
87 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
88 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
89 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
90 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
91 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
92 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
98 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
99 the arguments to be comma-separated.
102 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
103 which only declare a variable are not shown.
106 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
107 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
110 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
111 "set script-extension" (see below).
113 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
115 record save [<FILENAME>]
116 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
117 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
119 record restore <FILENAME>
120 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
121 earlier time, for replay debugging.
123 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
126 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
127 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
133 maint info program-spaces
134 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
136 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
137 show remote interrupt-sequence
138 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
139 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
140 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
141 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
142 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
144 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
145 show remote interrupt-on-connect
146 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
147 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
150 set remotebreak [on | off]
152 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
154 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
155 Create or modify a trace state variable.
158 List trace state variables and their values.
160 delete tvariable $NAME ...
161 Delete one or more trace state variables.
164 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
165 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
167 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
168 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
170 * New expression syntax
172 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
173 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
177 set follow-exec-mode new|same
178 show follow-exec-mode
179 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
180 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
181 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
183 set default-collect EXPR, ...
185 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
186 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
187 such as registers or a critical global variable.
189 set disconnected-tracing
190 show disconnected-tracing
191 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
192 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
195 set script-extension off|soft|strict
196 show script-extension
197 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
198 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
199 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
200 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
202 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
204 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
205 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
206 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
207 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
208 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
209 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
210 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
213 * Python API Improvements
215 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
216 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
217 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
219 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
220 `is_base_class' attribute.
222 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
224 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
225 evaluate an expression.
230 Define a trace state variable.
233 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
236 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
239 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
243 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
245 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
246 much more reliable. In particular:
247 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
248 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
249 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
250 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
251 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
252 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
253 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
254 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
255 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
256 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
257 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
258 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
259 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
260 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
261 non-threaded programs.
263 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
264 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
265 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
268 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
270 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
271 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
272 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
273 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
274 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
276 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
277 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
278 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
279 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
280 for tracepoint actions.
282 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
283 in hex as well as in symbolic form.
285 * Process record and replay
287 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
288 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
289 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
292 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
293 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
294 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
297 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
298 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
301 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
302 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
303 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
304 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
305 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
306 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
307 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
308 the installation instructions for more information.
310 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
311 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
312 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
313 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
315 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
316 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
318 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
319 now complete on file names.
321 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
322 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
323 For instance, consider:
325 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
326 # struct example variable;
329 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
330 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
332 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
333 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
335 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
336 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
339 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
340 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
341 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
343 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
344 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
345 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
346 and simulator targets may also provide them.
351 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
354 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
355 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
356 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
359 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
360 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
363 Obtains additional operating system information
367 Read or write additional signal information.
369 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
371 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
372 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
373 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
375 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
378 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
379 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
381 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
382 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
383 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
385 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
386 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
388 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
390 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
392 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
393 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
395 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
396 list of section offsets.
398 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
399 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
400 have also been fixed.
402 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
403 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
404 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
406 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
409 template<typename T> class C { };
412 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
414 ptype C<char const *>
416 ptype C<const char *>
419 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
421 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
422 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
424 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
425 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
426 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
428 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
429 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
431 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
434 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
435 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
437 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
438 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
443 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
444 available is determined at configure time.
446 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
448 * Ada tasking support
450 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
454 Print the list of Ada tasks.
456 Print detailed information about task number N.
458 Print the task number of the current task.
460 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
462 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
463 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
465 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
467 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
468 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
469 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
470 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
471 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
472 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
475 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
476 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
479 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
480 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
481 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
482 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
485 * Multi-architecture debugging.
487 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
488 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
489 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
490 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
491 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
493 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
494 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
495 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
496 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
497 --enable-targets configure option.
499 * Non-stop mode debugging.
501 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
502 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
503 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
504 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
505 section in the user manual for more information.
507 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
508 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
509 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
510 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
511 extensions on linux targets.
513 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
515 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
516 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
517 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
518 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
519 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
520 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
521 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
522 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
523 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
525 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
527 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
529 maint set python print-stack
530 maint show python print-stack
531 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
534 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
539 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
543 Show operating system information about processes.
546 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
549 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
552 Detach from inferior number NUM.
555 Kill inferior number NUM.
560 show spu stop-on-load
561 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
563 set spu auto-flush-cache
564 show spu auto-flush-cache
565 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
566 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
568 set sh calling-convention
569 show sh calling-convention
570 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
574 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
576 set disassemble-next-line
577 show disassemble-next-line
578 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
581 set remote noack-packet
582 show remote noack-packet
583 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
584 under "New remote packets."
586 set remote query-attached-packet
587 show remote query-attached-packet
588 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
590 set remote read-siginfo-object
591 show remote read-siginfo-object
592 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
595 set remote write-siginfo-object
596 show remote write-siginfo-object
597 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
600 set remote reverse-continue
601 show remote reverse-continue
602 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
604 set remote reverse-step
605 show remote reverse-step
606 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
608 set displaced-stepping
609 show displaced-stepping
610 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
611 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
612 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
616 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
618 maint set internal-error
619 maint show internal-error
620 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
622 maint set internal-warning
623 maint show internal-warning
624 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
629 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
631 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
632 show multiple-symbols
633 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
634 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
635 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
637 set breakpoint always-inserted
638 show breakpoint always-inserted
639 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
640 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
641 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
643 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
644 show arm fallback-mode
645 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
647 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
648 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
649 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
650 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
652 set disable-randomization
653 show disable-randomization
654 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
655 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
656 multiple debugging sessions.
660 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
665 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
666 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
667 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
668 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
670 set target-wide-charset
671 show target-wide-charset
672 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
673 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
675 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
677 set tcp connect-timeout
678 show tcp connect-timeout
679 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
680 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
681 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
683 set libthread-db-search-path
684 show libthread-db-search-path
685 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
688 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
689 show schedule-multiple
690 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
695 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
696 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
697 affecting correctness.
699 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
700 show interactive-mode
701 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
702 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
703 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
704 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
705 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
710 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
711 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
712 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
716 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
717 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
718 alias for the `fork' command.
721 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
722 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
723 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
726 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
727 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
728 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
732 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
733 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
734 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
737 * New native configurations
739 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
741 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
745 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
746 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
747 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
750 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
751 (mingw32ce) debugging.
757 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
759 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
761 * New native configurations
763 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
764 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
768 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
769 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
771 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
773 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
774 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
775 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
776 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
778 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
779 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
781 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
784 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
785 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
786 and in inlined functions.
788 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
789 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
790 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
792 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
794 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
795 registers on PowerPC targets.
797 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
798 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
800 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
801 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
803 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
804 extended-remote mode.
806 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
807 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
808 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
809 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
811 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
812 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
813 target architectures.
815 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
816 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
817 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
818 stored in two consecutive float registers.
820 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
823 * Improved support for debugging Ada
824 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
826 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
827 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
828 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
829 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
831 - Improved command completion in Ada
834 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
839 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
840 show print frame-arguments
841 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
842 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
847 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
854 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
863 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
866 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
870 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
872 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
874 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
875 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
876 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
878 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
879 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
880 -Bsymbolic linker option.
882 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
883 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
886 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
887 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
889 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
890 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
892 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
894 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
895 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
896 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
898 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
899 automatically displayed as character or string data.
901 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
902 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
905 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
906 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
907 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
909 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
912 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
913 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
914 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
916 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
918 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
920 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
921 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
922 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
924 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
925 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
927 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
928 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
929 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
930 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
931 Windows and SymbianOS).
933 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
934 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
936 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
937 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
943 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
944 when debugging using remote targets.
946 set mem inaccessible-by-default
947 show mem inaccessible-by-default
948 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
949 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
950 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
951 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
952 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
954 set breakpoint auto-hw
955 show breakpoint auto-hw
956 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
957 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
958 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
959 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
960 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
961 including "next" and "finish".
964 catch exception unhandled
965 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
968 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
972 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
973 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
974 an alias to "set sysroot".
977 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
978 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
981 * New native configurations
983 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
988 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
989 not query the target for its built-in description.
993 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
994 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
995 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1000 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1001 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1003 qXfer:features:read:
1004 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1009 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1010 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1012 qXfer:libraries:read:
1013 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1014 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1015 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1016 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1020 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1028 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1029 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1030 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1031 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1033 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1036 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1037 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1046 * Other removed features
1053 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1060 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1065 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1066 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1071 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1072 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1074 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1076 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1077 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1078 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1079 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1081 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1083 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1084 in debugging information.
1088 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1089 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1091 set mips stack-arg-size
1092 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1094 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1096 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1101 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1103 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1104 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1105 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1107 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1108 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1111 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1112 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1114 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1115 stub provides the required support.
1117 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1118 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1123 unset substitute-path
1124 show substitute-path
1125 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1126 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1127 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1128 between compilation and debugging.
1132 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1133 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1134 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1138 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1140 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1141 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1143 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1145 * New remote packets
1148 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1149 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1150 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1151 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1155 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1156 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1158 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1159 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1160 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1165 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1167 * Removed remote packets
1170 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1171 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1173 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1177 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1179 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1183 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1184 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1186 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1188 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1190 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1191 previously saved state.
1193 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1195 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1197 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1198 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1200 info forks List forks of the user program that
1201 are available to be debugged.
1203 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1204 forks of the user program that are
1205 available to be debugged.
1207 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1208 that are available to be debugged (and
1209 kill the forked process).
1211 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1212 that are available to be debugged (and
1213 allow the process to continue).
1217 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1219 * Improved Windows host support
1221 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1222 native console support, and remote communications using either
1223 network sockets or serial ports.
1225 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1227 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1228 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1229 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1230 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1231 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1232 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1236 The ARM rdi-share module.
1238 The Netware NLM debug server.
1240 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1242 * New native configurations
1244 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1245 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1249 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1251 * New command line options
1253 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1254 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1255 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1256 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1257 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1258 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1259 with the --command (-x) option.
1261 * Deprecated commands removed
1263 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1267 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1268 othernames set arm disassembler
1269 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1270 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1271 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1274 * New BSD user-level threads support
1276 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1277 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1280 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1281 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1282 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1284 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1285 are not yet supported.
1287 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1288 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1290 * REMOVED configurations and files
1292 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1293 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1294 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1296 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1298 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1299 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1302 * VAX floating point support
1304 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1306 * User-defined command support
1308 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1309 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1310 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1312 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1314 * New command line option
1316 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1319 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1321 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1322 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1323 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1324 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1325 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1327 * Internationalization
1329 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1330 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1331 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1335 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1336 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1337 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1339 * New native configurations
1341 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1345 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1346 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1348 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1350 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1351 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1352 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1355 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1356 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1357 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1367 powerpc bdm protocol
1369 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1370 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1372 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1374 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1375 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1376 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1377 permanently REMOVED.
1386 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1388 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1390 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1391 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1394 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1396 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1397 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1398 IRIX long double values).
1402 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1403 command. This problem has been fixed.
1405 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1407 * Fix for ``many threads''
1409 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1410 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1413 ptrace: No such process.
1414 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1416 This problem has been fixed.
1418 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1420 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1423 * New ``start'' command.
1425 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1427 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1429 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1430 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1431 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1433 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1434 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1435 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1436 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1437 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1438 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1439 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1440 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1441 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1443 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1445 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1446 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1447 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1448 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1449 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1451 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1452 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1453 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1455 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1457 * New native configurations
1459 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1460 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1461 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1462 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1463 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1464 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1465 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1467 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1469 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1470 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1471 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1472 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1473 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1474 work, was also included.
1476 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1477 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1487 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1488 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1490 * REMOVED configurations and files
1492 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1493 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1494 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1495 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1496 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1497 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1498 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1499 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1500 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1501 sonymips mips-sony-*
1502 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1504 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1506 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1508 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1509 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1510 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1511 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1514 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1516 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1517 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1518 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1519 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1520 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1521 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1524 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1526 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1528 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1529 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1530 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1532 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1534 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1535 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1537 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1539 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1540 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1541 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1543 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1545 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1546 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1548 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1550 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1551 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1552 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1554 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1556 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1557 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1558 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1560 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1562 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1564 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1565 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1567 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1569 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1570 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1571 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1572 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1574 * Revised SPARC target
1576 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1577 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1578 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1579 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1580 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1584 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1585 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1586 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1589 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1591 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1592 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1595 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1597 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1598 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1599 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1600 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1601 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1602 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1603 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1604 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1605 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1607 * New native configurations
1609 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1610 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1611 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1612 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1613 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1615 * New debugging protocols
1617 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1619 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1621 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1622 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1623 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1625 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1627 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1628 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1629 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1630 permanently REMOVED.
1632 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1633 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1634 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1635 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1636 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1637 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1638 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1639 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1640 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1641 sonymips mips-sony-*
1642 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1644 * REMOVED configurations and files
1646 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1647 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1648 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1649 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1650 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1651 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1652 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1653 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1654 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1655 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1656 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1657 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1658 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1659 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1660 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1661 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1662 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1664 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1668 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1669 integrated into GDB.
1671 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1673 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1674 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1675 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1678 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1679 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1680 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1684 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1685 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1686 remote protocol documentation for details.
1688 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1690 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1691 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1692 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1695 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1697 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1698 per-thread variables.
1700 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1702 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1703 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1705 * Separate debug info.
1707 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1708 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1709 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1710 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1711 and optional debug files.
1713 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1715 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1716 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1719 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1720 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1724 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1725 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1726 considered "useable".
1728 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1730 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1731 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1734 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1736 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1737 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1739 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1741 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1742 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1745 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1747 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1748 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1752 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1753 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1754 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1755 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1756 data, for more informative profiling results.
1758 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1760 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1761 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1762 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1764 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1767 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1768 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1769 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1770 in a subsequent -var-update.
1772 * New native configurations.
1774 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1776 * Multi-arched targets.
1778 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1779 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1781 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1783 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1784 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1785 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1786 permanently REMOVED.
1788 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1789 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1790 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1791 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1792 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1793 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1794 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1795 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1796 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1797 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1798 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1799 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1801 * REMOVED configurations and files
1804 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1805 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1806 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1807 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1808 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1809 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1811 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1812 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1813 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1814 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1815 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1816 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1818 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1820 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1821 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1822 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1823 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1824 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1826 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1828 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1830 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1831 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1832 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1833 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1834 shared libs like mad''.
1836 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1838 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1839 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1840 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1841 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1843 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1845 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1846 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1849 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1850 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1852 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1853 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1855 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1856 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1857 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1858 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1860 * Multi-arched targets.
1862 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1863 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1865 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1866 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1867 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1871 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1874 * New native configurations
1876 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1877 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1878 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1879 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1881 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1883 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1884 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1885 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1886 permanently REMOVED.
1888 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1889 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1890 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1891 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1892 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1893 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1894 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1895 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1896 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1897 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1899 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1900 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1902 * OBSOLETE languages
1904 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1906 * REMOVED configurations and files
1908 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1909 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1910 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1911 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1912 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1914 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1916 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1918 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1919 commands. The default is 1024.
1921 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1923 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1925 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1927 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1928 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1929 from a file into memory (restore).
1931 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1933 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1934 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1935 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1937 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1945 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1946 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1947 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1949 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1950 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1951 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1953 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1954 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1955 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1957 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1958 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1959 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1961 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1963 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1965 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1966 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1967 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1968 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1969 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1970 (notably embedded) targets.
1972 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1974 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1975 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1976 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1977 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1979 * New command line option
1981 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1983 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1985 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1986 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1987 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1988 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1989 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1990 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1991 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1992 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1993 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1994 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1996 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1998 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1999 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2001 * New native configurations
2003 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2004 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2005 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2006 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2010 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2012 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2014 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2015 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2016 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2017 permanently REMOVED.
2019 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2020 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2021 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2022 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2023 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2025 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2027 * REMOVED configurations and files
2029 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2031 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2032 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2033 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2034 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2035 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2036 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2037 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2038 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2039 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2040 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2041 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2043 * Changes to command line processing
2045 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2046 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2048 * Changes to key bindings
2050 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2052 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2054 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2056 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2059 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2061 Numerous documentation fixes.
2063 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2065 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2067 * New native configurations
2069 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2070 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2071 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2072 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2073 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2074 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2078 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2080 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2082 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2084 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2085 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2086 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2087 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2088 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2090 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2091 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2092 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2093 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2094 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2095 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2096 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2097 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2099 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2100 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2102 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2103 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2104 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2105 permanently REMOVED.
2107 * REMOVED configurations and files
2109 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2110 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2112 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2116 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2118 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2119 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2124 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2126 * The MI enabled by default.
2128 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2129 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2130 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2131 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2132 which is now deprecated.
2134 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2136 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2137 main features are supported:
2139 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2141 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2144 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2146 - a Pascal expression parser.
2148 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2150 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2152 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2154 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2155 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2157 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2159 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2161 * Changes in completion.
2163 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2164 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2165 users expect at the shell prompt.
2167 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2168 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2169 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2170 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2171 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2172 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2173 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2175 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2177 * New platform-independent commands:
2179 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2180 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2181 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2183 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2185 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2186 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2187 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2189 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2191 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2192 multi-threaded programs though.
2194 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2196 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2198 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2199 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2202 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2204 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2205 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2206 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2207 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2208 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2211 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2212 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2213 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2215 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2217 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2218 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2220 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2221 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2224 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2225 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2226 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2227 a given linear address.
2229 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2230 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2231 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2233 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2235 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2237 * Changes in documentation.
2239 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2240 Documentation License.
2242 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2245 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2247 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2250 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2251 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2252 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2254 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2256 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2257 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2258 contents of this file.
2262 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2264 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2266 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2268 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2269 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2270 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2271 greater level of detail.
2273 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2275 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2276 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2277 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2280 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2282 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2283 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2284 machines ``out of the box''.
2286 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2287 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2288 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2289 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2290 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2292 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2293 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2294 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2295 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2296 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2298 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2299 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2302 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2305 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2306 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2307 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2308 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2310 * New native configurations
2312 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2313 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2317 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2318 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2319 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2320 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2322 * OBSOLETE configurations
2324 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2325 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2327 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2330 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2331 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2332 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2333 be permanently REMOVED.
2335 * Gould support removed
2337 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2339 * New features for SVR4
2341 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2342 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2343 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2345 * Many C++ enhancements
2347 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2348 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2350 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2352 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2353 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2354 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2355 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2357 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2358 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2360 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2362 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2363 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2364 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2366 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2367 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2369 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2371 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2372 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2373 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2375 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2377 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2378 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2379 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2381 * ``apropos'' command added.
2383 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2384 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2385 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2389 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2390 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2391 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2392 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2393 enabled by configuring with:
2395 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2397 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2399 * New native configurations
2401 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2402 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2403 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2407 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2408 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2409 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2411 * OBSOLETE configurations
2413 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2415 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2416 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2417 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2418 be permanently REMOVED.
2422 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2423 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2424 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2425 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2426 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2427 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2428 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2433 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2435 * set extension-language
2437 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2438 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2439 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2440 set extension-language .c c++
2441 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2442 and their associated languages.
2444 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2446 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2447 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2448 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2452 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2453 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2455 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2456 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2458 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2459 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2460 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2461 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2462 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2463 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2464 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2465 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2467 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2468 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2469 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2470 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2474 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2475 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2476 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2477 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2478 for xdb and dbx commands.
2482 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2483 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2484 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2486 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2487 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2488 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2490 * Debugging across forks
2492 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2497 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2498 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2499 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2501 * GDB remote protocol additions
2503 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2504 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2505 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2506 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2508 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2509 full 64-bit address. The command
2511 set remoteaddresssize 32
2513 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2514 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2517 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2518 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2520 maint packet heythere
2522 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2523 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2526 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2527 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2528 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2530 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2532 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2533 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2534 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2536 * mask-address variable for Mips
2538 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2539 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2540 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2542 * Higher serial baud rates
2544 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2545 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2546 to achieve all of these rates.)
2550 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2551 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2554 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2556 * New native configurations
2558 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2559 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2560 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2561 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2562 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2563 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2564 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2568 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2569 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2570 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2571 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2572 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2573 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2574 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2575 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2576 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2577 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2578 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2580 * New debugging protocols
2582 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2583 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2584 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2585 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2586 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2587 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2591 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2592 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2597 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2598 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2600 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2602 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2603 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2604 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2606 * Live range splitting
2608 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2609 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2610 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2614 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2615 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2619 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2620 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2621 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2626 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2631 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2632 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2633 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2634 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2635 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2636 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2640 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2641 the symbol at the specified address.
2645 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2646 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2647 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2648 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2649 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2653 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2654 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2655 of most MIPS variants.
2659 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2660 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2661 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2665 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2666 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2667 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2668 the possible architectures.
2670 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2672 * New native configurations
2674 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2675 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2676 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2677 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2678 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2679 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2683 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2684 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2685 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2686 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2687 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2689 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2693 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2694 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2695 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2696 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2697 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2701 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2703 * Windows 95/NT native
2705 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2706 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2707 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2708 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2709 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2711 * dont-repeat command
2713 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2714 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2715 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2716 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2718 * Send break instead of ^C
2720 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2721 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2722 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2724 * Remote protocol timeout
2726 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2727 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2728 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2730 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2732 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2733 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2734 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2735 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2736 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2738 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2739 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2740 automatically on hpux10.
2742 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2744 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2746 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2748 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2749 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2750 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2751 every character. The default value is 1050.
2753 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2755 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2756 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2757 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2758 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2759 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2760 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2762 * Speedups for remote debugging
2764 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2765 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2766 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2768 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2770 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2771 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2773 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2775 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2777 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2778 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2780 * Remote targets use caching
2782 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2783 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2784 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2785 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2786 off' turns the the data cache off.
2788 * Remote targets may have threads
2790 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2791 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2792 gdb/remote.c for details.
2796 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2797 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2798 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2799 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2800 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2801 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2802 sequence is something like
2804 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2806 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2810 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2811 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2812 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2813 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2814 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2815 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2816 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2817 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2821 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2822 but does simplify configuration and building.
2826 GDB now supports hpux10.
2828 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2830 * New native configurations
2832 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2833 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2834 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2835 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2839 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2840 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2841 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2842 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2845 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2847 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2848 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2849 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2850 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2851 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2853 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2855 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2856 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2859 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2861 To execute the command use:
2864 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2865 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2866 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2868 * New `if' and `while' commands
2870 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2871 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2872 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2873 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2874 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2875 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2876 if the expression is zero.
2878 * Fortran source language mode
2880 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2881 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2882 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2883 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2886 * Better HPUX support
2888 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2889 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2890 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2891 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2892 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2898 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2899 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2905 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2906 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2909 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2910 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2912 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2914 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2915 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2916 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2917 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2918 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2919 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2921 * New DOS host serial code
2923 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2924 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2927 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2929 * New "complete" command
2931 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2932 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2934 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2936 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2937 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2939 * Breakpoint hit counts
2941 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2942 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2943 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2944 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2945 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2948 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2950 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2951 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2952 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2954 * Shared library breakpoints
2956 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2957 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2959 * Hardware watchpoints
2961 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2962 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2964 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2968 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2969 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2971 * Improved Irix 5 support
2973 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2975 * Improved HPPA support
2977 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2979 * New native configurations
2981 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2982 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2983 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2984 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2988 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2989 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2992 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2994 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2995 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2999 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3000 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3002 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3004 * Irix 5 is now supported
3008 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3009 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3010 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3011 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3012 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3015 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3017 * User visible changes:
3021 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3022 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3023 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3024 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3025 debugging info for the mips target).
3027 * DEC Alpha native support
3029 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3030 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3031 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3032 Alpha-specific notes.
3034 * Preliminary thread implementation
3036 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3038 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3040 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3041 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3044 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3046 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3047 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3048 call methods, ...etc.
3050 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3052 * User visible changes:
3054 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3055 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3056 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3057 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3059 Filename completion now works.
3061 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3062 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3063 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3065 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3066 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3067 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3068 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3069 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3073 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3074 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3077 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3081 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3082 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3083 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3087 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3088 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3089 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3090 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3091 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3095 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3096 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3097 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3099 * New targets supported
3101 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3102 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3103 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3104 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3105 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3107 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3108 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3109 GO32 memory extender.
3111 * New remote protocols
3113 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3115 * New source languages supported
3117 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3118 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3119 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3122 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3124 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3126 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3127 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3128 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3129 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3130 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3131 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3133 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3135 * Faster and better demangling
3137 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3138 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3139 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3140 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3141 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3142 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3145 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3146 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3147 compiler does not actually implement.
3149 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3151 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3152 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3153 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3154 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3155 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3156 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3159 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3160 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3162 * Improved configure script
3164 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3165 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3166 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3167 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3169 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3170 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3171 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3172 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3173 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3174 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3176 * Documentation improvements
3178 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3179 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3180 before submitting changes.
3182 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3183 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3184 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3185 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3186 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3188 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3189 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3190 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3191 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3192 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3193 around this problem.
3197 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3198 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3199 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3202 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3203 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3205 * New native hosts supported
3207 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3208 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3210 * New targets supported
3212 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3214 * New file formats supported
3216 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3217 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3221 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3223 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3224 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3226 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3227 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3228 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3230 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3231 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3233 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3234 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3235 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3238 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3239 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3240 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3241 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3242 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3244 * Internal improvements
3246 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3247 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3249 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3250 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3251 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3252 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3253 shared code that handles any of them.
3255 * New command line options
3257 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3261 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3262 General Public License.
3264 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3266 * Host/native/target split
3268 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3269 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3270 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3271 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3272 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3274 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3275 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3276 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3277 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3278 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3279 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3280 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3282 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3283 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3284 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3286 * New hosts supported
3288 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3289 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3290 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3292 * New targets supported
3294 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3295 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3297 * New native hosts supported
3299 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3300 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3301 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3303 * New file formats supported
3305 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3306 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3307 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3311 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3312 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3313 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3315 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3317 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3318 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3319 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3320 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3324 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3325 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3326 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3328 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3332 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3333 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3336 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3337 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3339 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3340 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3341 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3342 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3343 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3344 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3346 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3347 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3348 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3349 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3353 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3354 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3355 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3356 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3357 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3359 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3360 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3361 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3362 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3366 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3367 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3368 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3369 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3370 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3371 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3372 each instruction being stepped through.
3374 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3375 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3377 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3378 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3379 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3380 processor with a serial port.
3384 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3385 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3386 supported, and what files each one uses.
3390 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3391 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3392 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3393 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3395 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3396 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3397 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3398 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3402 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3403 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3404 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3405 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3406 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3407 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3409 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3412 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3414 * Better support for C++ function names
3416 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3417 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3418 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3419 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3420 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3422 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3423 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3424 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3425 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3426 for the list of formats.
3428 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3430 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3431 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3432 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3433 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3434 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3435 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3438 * New 'maintenance' command
3440 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3441 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3442 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3444 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3445 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3446 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3447 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3448 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3449 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3451 The following commands are new:
3453 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3454 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3455 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3457 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3459 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3460 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3461 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3462 read after argv processing.
3464 * New hosts supported
3466 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3468 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3470 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3471 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3472 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3473 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3474 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3477 * New targets supported
3479 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3481 * More smarts about finding #include files
3483 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3484 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3485 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3486 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3487 the one that contains your sources.
3489 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3490 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3491 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3493 * Interesting infernals change
3495 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3496 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3497 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3498 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3500 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3502 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3503 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3504 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3506 See the ChangeLog for details.
3508 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3510 * New machines supported (host and target)
3512 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3514 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3516 * New malloc package
3518 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3519 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3520 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3521 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3522 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3523 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3527 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3528 'help info proc' for details.
3530 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3532 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3533 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3536 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3538 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3539 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3540 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3541 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3542 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3543 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3545 * Cross byte order fixes
3547 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3548 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3550 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3552 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3553 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3554 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3555 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3556 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3557 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3558 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3559 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3560 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3561 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3563 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3564 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3565 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3566 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3568 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3569 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3570 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3573 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3575 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3576 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3577 shared across multiple host platforms.
3579 * longjmp() handling
3581 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3582 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3583 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3584 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3588 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3589 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3594 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3595 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3596 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3598 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3600 * New machines supported (host and target)
3602 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3604 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3605 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3607 * New machines supported (target)
3609 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3613 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3614 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3615 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3617 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3618 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3619 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3620 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3621 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3624 * New features for SVR4
3626 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3627 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3628 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3630 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3631 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3632 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3634 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3635 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3637 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3639 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3640 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3641 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3642 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3643 same code linked statically.
3647 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3648 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3649 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3650 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3651 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3652 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3656 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3657 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3658 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3661 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3663 * New machines supported (host and target)
3665 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3666 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3667 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3669 * Almost SCO Unix support
3671 We had hoped to support:
3672 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3673 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3674 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3675 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3677 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3679 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3680 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3681 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3682 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3687 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3688 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3689 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3693 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3694 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3695 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3697 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3699 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3700 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3701 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3703 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3704 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3705 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3706 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3709 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3710 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3711 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3712 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3715 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3716 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3719 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3720 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3721 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3724 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3726 * Improved configuration
3728 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3729 Porting BFD is simpler.
3733 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3734 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3735 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3736 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3740 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3742 * New host supported (not target)
3744 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3747 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3749 * Multiple source language support
3751 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3752 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3753 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3754 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3755 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3756 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3760 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3761 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3762 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3763 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3765 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3766 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3767 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3769 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3770 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3774 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3775 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3776 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3777 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3780 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3782 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3783 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3784 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3785 examining core files.
3789 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3792 * New machines supported (host and target)
3794 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3795 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3796 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3798 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3800 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3802 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3804 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3805 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3806 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3808 * New remote interfaces
3814 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3818 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3820 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3821 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3822 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3823 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3824 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3825 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3826 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3827 stub on the target system.
3829 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3831 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3832 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3833 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3835 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3836 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3839 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3841 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3842 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3844 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3845 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3846 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3848 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3849 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3850 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3851 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3853 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3854 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3855 it is already running. Default is ON.
3857 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3858 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3859 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3860 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3863 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3864 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3865 or the value of the environment variable
3868 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3869 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3872 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3873 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3874 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3876 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3877 history expansion will be performed on
3878 command line input. The default is OFF.
3880 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3881 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3882 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3884 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3885 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3886 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3889 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3890 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3891 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3894 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3895 ``set width'' instead.
3897 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3898 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3899 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3900 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3902 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3905 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3908 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3911 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3914 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3916 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3917 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3918 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3922 * Support for Shared Libraries
3924 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3925 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3926 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3927 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3928 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3929 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3930 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3931 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3933 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3934 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3935 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3937 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3942 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3943 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3944 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3945 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3946 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3947 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3949 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3951 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3953 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3954 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3955 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3958 * C++ multiple inheritance
3960 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3963 * C++ exception handling
3965 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3966 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3967 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3970 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3971 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3972 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3974 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3975 current stack frame.
3978 * Minor command changes
3980 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3981 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3982 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3984 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3985 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3986 frames without printing.
3988 * New directory command
3990 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3991 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3992 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3993 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3994 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3996 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3998 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4001 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4002 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4003 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4004 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob