1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
10 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
13 * New native configurations
15 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
16 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
17 MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
21 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
23 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
25 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
26 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
27 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
28 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
29 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
31 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
32 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
33 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
34 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
35 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
36 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
37 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
38 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
40 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
41 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
43 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
44 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
45 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
48 * REMOVED configurations and files
50 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
53 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
59 * All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
61 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
63 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
65 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
66 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
67 contents of this file.
71 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
73 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
75 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
77 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
78 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
79 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
80 greater level of detail.
82 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
84 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
85 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
86 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
89 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
91 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
92 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
93 machines ``out of the box''.
95 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
96 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
97 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
98 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
99 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
101 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
102 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
103 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
104 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
105 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
107 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
108 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
111 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
114 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
115 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
116 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
117 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
119 * New native configurations
121 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
122 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
126 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
127 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
128 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
129 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
131 * OBSOLETE configurations
133 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
134 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
136 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
139 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
140 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
141 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
142 be permanently REMOVED.
144 * Gould support removed
146 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
148 * New features for SVR4
150 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
151 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
152 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
154 * Many C++ enhancements
156 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
157 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
159 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
161 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
162 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
163 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
164 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
166 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
167 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
169 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
171 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
172 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
173 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
175 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
176 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
178 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
180 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
181 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
182 include ``set remote P-packet''.
184 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
186 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
187 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
188 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
190 * ``apropos'' command added.
192 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
193 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
194 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
198 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
199 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
200 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
201 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
202 enabled by configuring with:
204 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
206 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
208 * New native configurations
210 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
211 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
212 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
216 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
217 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
218 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
220 * OBSOLETE configurations
222 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
224 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
225 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
226 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
227 be permanently REMOVED.
231 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
232 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
233 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
234 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
235 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
236 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
237 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
242 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
244 * set extension-language
246 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
247 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
248 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
249 set extension-language .c c++
250 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
251 and their associated languages.
253 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
255 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
256 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
257 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
261 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
262 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
264 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
265 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
267 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
268 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
269 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
270 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
271 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
272 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
273 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
274 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
276 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
277 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
278 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
279 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
283 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
284 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
285 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
286 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
287 for xdb and dbx commands.
291 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
292 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
293 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
295 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
296 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
297 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
299 * Debugging across forks
301 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
306 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
307 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
308 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
310 * GDB remote protocol additions
312 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
313 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
314 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
315 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
317 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
318 full 64-bit address. The command
320 set remoteaddresssize 32
322 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
323 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
326 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
327 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
329 maint packet heythere
331 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
332 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
335 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
336 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
337 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
339 * Tracing can collect general expressions
341 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
342 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
343 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
345 * mask-address variable for Mips
347 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
348 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
349 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
351 * Higher serial baud rates
353 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
354 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
355 to achieve all of these rates.)
359 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
360 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
363 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
365 * New native configurations
367 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
368 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
369 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
370 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
371 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
372 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
373 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
377 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
378 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
379 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
380 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
381 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
382 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
383 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
384 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
385 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
386 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
387 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
389 * New debugging protocols
391 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
392 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
393 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
394 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
395 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
396 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
400 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
401 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
406 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
407 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
409 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
411 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
412 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
413 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
415 * Live range splitting
417 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
418 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
419 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
423 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
424 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
428 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
429 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
430 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
435 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
440 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
441 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
442 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
443 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
444 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
445 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
449 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
450 the symbol at the specified address.
454 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
455 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
456 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
457 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
458 file tracepoint.c for more details.
462 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
463 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
464 of most MIPS variants.
468 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
469 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
470 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
474 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
475 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
476 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
477 the possible architectures.
479 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
481 * New native configurations
483 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
484 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
485 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
486 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
487 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
488 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
492 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
493 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
494 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
495 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
496 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
498 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
502 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
503 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
504 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
505 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
506 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
510 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
512 * Windows 95/NT native
514 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
515 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
516 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
517 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
518 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
520 * dont-repeat command
522 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
523 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
524 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
525 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
527 * Send break instead of ^C
529 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
530 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
531 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
533 * Remote protocol timeout
535 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
536 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
537 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
539 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
541 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
542 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
543 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
544 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
545 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
547 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
548 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
549 automatically on hpux10.
551 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
553 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
555 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
557 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
558 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
559 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
560 every character. The default value is 1050.
562 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
564 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
565 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
566 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
567 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
568 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
569 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
571 * Speedups for remote debugging
573 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
574 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
575 and more efficient S-record downloading.
577 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
579 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
580 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
582 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
586 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
587 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
589 * Remote targets use caching
591 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
592 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
593 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
594 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
595 off' turns the the data cache off.
597 * Remote targets may have threads
599 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
600 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
601 gdb/remote.c for details.
605 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
606 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
607 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
608 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
609 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
610 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
611 sequence is something like
613 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
615 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
619 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
620 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
621 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
622 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
623 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
624 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
625 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
626 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
630 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
631 but does simplify configuration and building.
635 GDB now supports hpux10.
637 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
639 * New native configurations
641 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
642 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
643 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
644 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
648 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
649 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
650 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
651 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
654 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
656 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
657 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
658 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
659 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
660 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
662 * Arguments to user-defined commands
664 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
665 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
668 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
670 To execute the command use:
673 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
674 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
675 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
677 * New `if' and `while' commands
679 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
680 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
681 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
682 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
683 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
684 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
685 if the expression is zero.
687 * Fortran source language mode
689 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
690 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
691 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
692 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
695 * Better HPUX support
697 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
698 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
699 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
700 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
701 that behavior do the following before running the program:
707 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
708 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
714 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
715 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
718 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
719 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
721 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
723 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
724 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
725 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
726 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
727 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
728 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
730 * New DOS host serial code
732 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
733 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
736 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
738 * New "complete" command
740 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
741 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
743 * Trailing space optional in prompt
745 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
746 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
748 * Breakpoint hit counts
750 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
751 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
752 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
753 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
754 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
757 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
759 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
760 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
761 arrays actually contain only short strings.
763 * Shared library breakpoints
765 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
766 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
768 * Hardware watchpoints
770 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
771 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
773 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
777 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
778 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
780 * Improved Irix 5 support
782 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
784 * Improved HPPA support
786 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
788 * New native configurations
790 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
791 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
792 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
793 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
797 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
798 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
801 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
803 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
804 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
808 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
809 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
811 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
813 * Irix 5 is now supported
817 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
818 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
819 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
820 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
821 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
824 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
826 * User visible changes:
830 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
831 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
832 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
833 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
834 debugging info for the mips target).
836 * DEC Alpha native support
838 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
839 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
840 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
841 Alpha-specific notes.
843 * Preliminary thread implementation
845 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
847 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
849 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
850 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
853 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
855 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
856 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
857 call methods, ...etc.
859 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
861 * User visible changes:
863 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
864 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
865 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
866 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
868 Filename completion now works.
870 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
871 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
872 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
874 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
875 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
876 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
877 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
878 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
882 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
883 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
886 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
890 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
891 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
892 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
896 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
897 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
898 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
899 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
900 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
904 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
905 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
906 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
908 * New targets supported
910 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
911 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
912 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
913 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
914 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
916 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
917 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
918 GO32 memory extender.
920 * New remote protocols
922 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
924 * New source languages supported
926 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
927 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
928 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
931 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
933 * HP Precision Architecture supported
935 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
936 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
937 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
938 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
939 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
940 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
942 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
944 * Faster and better demangling
946 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
947 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
948 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
949 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
950 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
951 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
954 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
955 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
956 compiler does not actually implement.
958 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
960 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
961 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
962 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
963 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
964 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
965 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
968 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
969 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
971 * Improved configure script
973 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
974 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
975 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
976 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
978 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
979 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
980 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
981 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
982 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
983 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
985 * Documentation improvements
987 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
988 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
989 before submitting changes.
991 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
992 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
993 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
994 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
995 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
997 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
998 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
999 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1000 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1001 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1002 around this problem.
1006 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1007 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1008 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1011 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1012 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1014 * New native hosts supported
1016 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1017 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1019 * New targets supported
1021 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1023 * New file formats supported
1025 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1026 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1030 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1032 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1033 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1035 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1036 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1037 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1039 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1040 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1042 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1043 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1044 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1047 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1048 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1049 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1050 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1051 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1053 * Internal improvements
1055 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1056 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1058 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1059 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1060 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1061 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1062 shared code that handles any of them.
1064 * New command line options
1066 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1070 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1071 General Public License.
1073 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1075 * Host/native/target split
1077 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1078 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1079 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1080 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1081 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1083 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1084 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1085 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1086 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1087 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1088 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1089 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1091 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1092 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1093 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1095 * New hosts supported
1097 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1098 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1099 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1101 * New targets supported
1103 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1104 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1106 * New native hosts supported
1108 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1109 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1110 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1112 * New file formats supported
1114 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1115 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1116 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1120 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1121 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1122 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1124 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1126 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1127 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1128 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1129 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1133 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1134 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1135 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1137 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1141 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1142 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1145 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1146 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1148 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1149 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1150 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1151 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1152 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1153 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1155 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1156 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1157 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1158 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1162 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1163 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1164 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1165 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1166 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1168 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1169 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1170 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1171 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1175 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1176 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1177 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1178 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1179 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1180 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1181 each instruction being stepped through.
1183 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1184 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1186 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1187 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1188 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1189 processor with a serial port.
1193 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1194 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1195 supported, and what files each one uses.
1199 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1200 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1201 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1202 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1204 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1205 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1206 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1207 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1211 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1212 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1213 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1214 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1215 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1216 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1218 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1221 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1223 * Better support for C++ function names
1225 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1226 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1227 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1228 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1229 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1231 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1232 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1233 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1234 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1235 for the list of formats.
1237 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1239 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1240 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1241 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1242 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1243 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1244 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1247 * New 'maintenance' command
1249 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1250 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1251 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1253 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1254 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1255 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1256 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1257 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1258 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1260 The following commands are new:
1262 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1263 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1264 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1266 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1268 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1269 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1270 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1271 read after argv processing.
1273 * New hosts supported
1275 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1277 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1279 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1280 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1281 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1282 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1283 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1286 * New targets supported
1288 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1290 * More smarts about finding #include files
1292 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1293 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1294 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1295 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1296 the one that contains your sources.
1298 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1299 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1300 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1302 * Interesting infernals change
1304 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1305 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1306 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1307 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1309 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1311 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1312 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1313 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1315 See the ChangeLog for details.
1317 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1319 * New machines supported (host and target)
1321 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1323 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1325 * New malloc package
1327 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1328 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1329 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1330 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1331 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1332 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1336 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1337 'help info proc' for details.
1339 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1341 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1342 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1345 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1347 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1348 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1349 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1350 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1351 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1352 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1354 * Cross byte order fixes
1356 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1357 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1359 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1361 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1362 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1363 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1364 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1365 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1366 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1367 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1368 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1369 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1370 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1372 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1373 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1374 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1375 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1377 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1378 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1379 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1382 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1384 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1385 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1386 shared across multiple host platforms.
1388 * longjmp() handling
1390 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1391 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1392 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1393 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1397 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1398 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1403 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1404 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1405 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1407 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1409 * New machines supported (host and target)
1411 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1413 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1414 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1416 * New machines supported (target)
1418 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1422 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1423 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1424 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1426 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1427 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1428 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1429 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1430 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1433 * New features for SVR4
1435 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1436 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1437 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1439 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1440 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1441 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1443 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1444 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1446 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1448 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1449 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1450 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1451 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1452 same code linked statically.
1456 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1457 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1458 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1459 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1460 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1461 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1465 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1466 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1467 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1470 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1472 * New machines supported (host and target)
1474 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1475 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1476 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1478 * Almost SCO Unix support
1480 We had hoped to support:
1481 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1482 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1483 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1484 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1486 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1488 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1489 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1490 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1491 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1496 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1497 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1498 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1502 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1503 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1504 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1506 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1508 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1509 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1510 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1512 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1513 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1514 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1515 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1518 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1519 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1520 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1521 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1524 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1525 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1528 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1529 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1530 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1533 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1535 * Improved configuration
1537 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1538 Porting BFD is simpler.
1542 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1543 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1544 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1545 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1549 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1551 * New host supported (not target)
1553 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1556 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1558 * Multiple source language support
1560 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1561 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1562 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1563 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1564 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1565 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1569 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1570 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1571 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1572 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1574 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1575 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1576 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1578 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1579 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1583 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1584 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1585 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1586 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1589 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1591 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1592 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1593 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1594 examining core files.
1598 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1601 * New machines supported (host and target)
1603 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1604 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1605 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1607 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1609 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1611 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1613 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1614 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1615 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1617 * New remote interfaces
1623 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1627 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1629 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1630 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1631 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1632 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1633 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1634 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1635 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1636 stub on the target system.
1638 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1640 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1641 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1642 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1644 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1645 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1648 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1650 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1651 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1653 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1654 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1655 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1657 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1658 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1659 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1660 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1662 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1663 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1664 it is already running. Default is ON.
1666 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1667 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1668 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1669 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1672 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1673 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1674 or the value of the environment variable
1677 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1678 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1681 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1682 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1683 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1685 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1686 history expansion will be performed on
1687 command line input. The default is OFF.
1689 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1690 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1691 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1693 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1694 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1695 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1698 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1699 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1700 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1703 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1704 ``set width'' instead.
1706 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1707 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1708 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1709 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1711 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1714 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1717 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1720 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1723 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1725 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1726 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1727 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1731 * Support for Shared Libraries
1733 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1734 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1735 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1736 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1737 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1738 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1739 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1740 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1742 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1743 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1744 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1746 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1751 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1752 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1753 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1754 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1755 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1756 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1758 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1760 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1762 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1763 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1764 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1767 * C++ multiple inheritance
1769 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1772 * C++ exception handling
1774 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1775 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1776 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1779 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1780 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1781 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1783 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1784 current stack frame.
1787 * Minor command changes
1789 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1790 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1791 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1793 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1794 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1795 frames without printing.
1797 * New directory command
1799 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1800 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1801 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1802 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1803 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1805 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1807 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1810 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1811 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1812 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1813 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob