1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.0:
6 * Removed --with-mmalloc
8 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
9 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
11 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
13 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
14 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
15 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
16 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
18 * Revised SPARC target
20 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
21 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
22 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped.
26 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
27 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
28 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
31 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
33 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
34 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
37 * New native configurations
39 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
40 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
41 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
43 * New debugging protocols
45 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
47 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
49 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
50 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
51 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
53 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
55 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
56 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
57 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
60 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
61 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
62 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
63 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
64 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
65 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
66 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
67 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
68 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
70 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
72 * REMOVED configurations and files
74 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
75 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
76 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
77 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
78 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
79 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
80 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
81 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
82 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
83 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
84 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
85 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
86 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
87 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
88 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
89 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
91 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
95 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
98 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
100 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
101 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
102 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
105 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
106 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
111 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
112 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
113 remote protocol documentation for details.
115 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
117 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
118 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
119 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
122 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
124 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
125 per-thread variables.
127 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
129 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
130 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
132 * Separate debug info.
134 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
135 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
136 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
137 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
138 and optional debug files.
140 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
142 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
143 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
146 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
147 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
151 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
152 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
153 considered "useable".
155 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
157 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
158 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
161 * GDB supports logging output to a file
163 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
164 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
166 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
168 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
169 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
172 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
174 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
175 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
179 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
180 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
181 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
182 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
183 data, for more informative profiling results.
185 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
187 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
188 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
189 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
191 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
194 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
195 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
196 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
197 in a subsequent -var-update.
199 * New native configurations.
201 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
203 * Multi-arched targets.
205 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
206 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
208 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
210 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
211 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
212 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
215 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
216 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
217 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
218 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
219 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
220 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
221 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
222 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
223 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
224 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
225 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
226 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
228 * REMOVED configurations and files
231 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
232 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
233 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
234 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
235 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
236 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
238 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
239 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
240 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
241 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
242 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
243 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
245 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
247 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
248 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
249 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
250 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
251 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
253 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
255 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
257 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
258 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
259 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
260 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
261 shared libs like mad''.
263 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
265 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
266 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
267 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
268 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
270 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
272 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
273 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
276 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
277 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
279 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
280 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
282 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
283 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
284 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
285 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
287 * Multi-arched targets.
289 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
290 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
292 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
293 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
294 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
298 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
301 * New native configurations
303 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
304 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
305 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
306 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
308 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
310 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
311 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
312 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
315 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
316 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
317 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
318 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
319 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
320 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
321 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
322 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
323 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
324 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
326 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
327 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
331 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
333 * REMOVED configurations and files
335 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
336 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
337 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
338 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
339 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
341 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
343 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
345 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
346 commands. The default is 1024.
348 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
350 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
352 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
354 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
355 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
356 from a file into memory (restore).
358 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
360 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
361 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
362 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
364 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
372 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
373 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
374 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
376 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
377 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
378 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
380 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
381 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
382 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
384 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
385 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
386 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
388 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
390 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
392 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
393 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
394 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
395 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
396 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
397 (notably embedded) targets.
399 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
401 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
402 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
403 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
404 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
406 * New command line option
408 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
410 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
412 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
413 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
414 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
415 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
416 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
417 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
418 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
419 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
420 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
421 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
423 * Changes in ARM configurations.
425 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
426 configuration is fully multi-arch.
428 * New native configurations
430 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
431 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
432 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
433 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
437 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
439 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
441 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
442 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
443 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
446 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
447 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
448 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
449 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
450 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
452 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
454 * REMOVED configurations and files
456 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
458 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
459 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
460 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
461 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
462 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
463 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
464 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
465 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
466 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
467 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
468 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
470 * Changes to command line processing
472 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
473 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
475 * Changes to key bindings
477 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
479 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
481 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
483 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
486 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
488 Numerous documentation fixes.
490 Numerous testsuite fixes.
492 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
494 * New native configurations
496 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
497 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
498 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
499 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
501 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
505 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
507 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
509 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
511 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
512 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
513 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
514 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
515 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
517 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
518 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
519 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
520 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
521 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
522 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
523 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
524 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
526 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
527 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
529 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
530 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
531 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
534 * REMOVED configurations and files
536 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
537 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
539 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
543 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
545 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
546 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
551 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
553 * The MI enabled by default.
555 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
556 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
557 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
558 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
559 which is now deprecated.
561 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
563 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
564 main features are supported:
566 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
568 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
571 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
573 - a Pascal expression parser.
575 However, some important features are not yet supported.
577 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
579 - there are some problems with boolean types;
581 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
582 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
584 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
586 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
588 * Changes in completion.
590 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
591 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
592 users expect at the shell prompt.
594 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
595 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
596 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
597 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
598 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
599 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
600 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
602 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
604 * New platform-independent commands:
606 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
607 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
608 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
610 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
612 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
613 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
614 many threads as your system allows you to have.
616 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
618 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
619 multi-threaded programs though.
621 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
623 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
625 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
626 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
629 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
631 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
632 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
633 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
634 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
635 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
638 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
639 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
640 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
642 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
644 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
645 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
647 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
648 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
651 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
652 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
653 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
654 a given linear address.
656 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
657 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
658 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
660 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
662 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
664 * Changes in documentation.
666 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
667 Documentation License.
669 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
672 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
674 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
677 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
678 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
679 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
681 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
683 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
684 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
685 contents of this file.
689 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
691 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
693 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
695 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
696 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
697 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
698 greater level of detail.
700 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
702 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
703 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
704 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
707 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
709 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
710 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
711 machines ``out of the box''.
713 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
714 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
715 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
716 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
717 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
719 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
720 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
721 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
722 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
723 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
725 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
726 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
729 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
732 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
733 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
734 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
735 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
737 * New native configurations
739 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
740 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
744 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
745 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
746 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
747 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
749 * OBSOLETE configurations
751 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
752 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
754 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
757 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
758 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
759 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
760 be permanently REMOVED.
762 * Gould support removed
764 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
766 * New features for SVR4
768 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
769 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
770 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
772 * Many C++ enhancements
774 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
775 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
777 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
779 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
780 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
781 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
782 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
784 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
785 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
787 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
789 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
790 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
791 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
793 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
794 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
796 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
798 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
799 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
800 include ``set remote P-packet''.
802 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
804 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
805 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
806 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
808 * ``apropos'' command added.
810 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
811 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
812 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
816 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
817 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
818 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
819 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
820 enabled by configuring with:
822 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
824 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
826 * New native configurations
828 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
829 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
830 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
834 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
835 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
836 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
838 * OBSOLETE configurations
840 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
842 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
843 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
844 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
845 be permanently REMOVED.
849 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
850 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
851 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
852 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
853 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
854 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
855 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
860 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
862 * set extension-language
864 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
865 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
866 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
867 set extension-language .c c++
868 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
869 and their associated languages.
871 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
873 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
874 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
875 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
879 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
880 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
882 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
883 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
885 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
886 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
887 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
888 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
889 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
890 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
891 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
892 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
894 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
895 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
896 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
897 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
901 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
902 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
903 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
904 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
905 for xdb and dbx commands.
909 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
910 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
911 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
913 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
914 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
915 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
917 * Debugging across forks
919 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
924 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
925 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
926 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
928 * GDB remote protocol additions
930 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
931 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
932 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
933 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
935 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
936 full 64-bit address. The command
938 set remoteaddresssize 32
940 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
941 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
944 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
945 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
947 maint packet heythere
949 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
950 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
953 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
954 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
955 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
957 * Tracing can collect general expressions
959 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
960 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
961 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
963 * mask-address variable for Mips
965 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
966 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
967 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
969 * Higher serial baud rates
971 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
972 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
973 to achieve all of these rates.)
977 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
978 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
981 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
983 * New native configurations
985 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
986 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
987 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
988 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
989 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
990 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
991 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
995 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
996 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
997 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
998 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
999 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1000 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1001 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1002 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1003 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1004 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1005 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1007 * New debugging protocols
1009 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1010 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1011 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1012 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1013 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1014 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1018 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1019 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1024 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1025 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1027 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1029 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1030 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1031 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1033 * Live range splitting
1035 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1036 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1037 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1041 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1042 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1046 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1047 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1048 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1053 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1058 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1059 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1060 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1061 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1062 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1063 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1067 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1068 the symbol at the specified address.
1072 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1073 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1074 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1075 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1076 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1080 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1081 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1082 of most MIPS variants.
1086 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1087 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1088 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1092 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1093 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1094 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1095 the possible architectures.
1097 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1099 * New native configurations
1101 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1102 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1103 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1104 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1105 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1106 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1110 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1111 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1112 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1113 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1114 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1116 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1120 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1121 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1122 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1123 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1124 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1128 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1130 * Windows 95/NT native
1132 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1133 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1134 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1135 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1136 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1138 * dont-repeat command
1140 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1141 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1142 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1143 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1145 * Send break instead of ^C
1147 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1148 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1149 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1151 * Remote protocol timeout
1153 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1154 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1155 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1157 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1159 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1160 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1161 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1162 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1163 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1165 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1166 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1167 automatically on hpux10.
1169 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1171 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1173 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1175 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1176 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1177 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1178 every character. The default value is 1050.
1180 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1182 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1183 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1184 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1185 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1186 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1187 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1189 * Speedups for remote debugging
1191 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1192 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1193 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1195 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1197 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1198 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1200 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1202 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1204 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1205 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1207 * Remote targets use caching
1209 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1210 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1211 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1212 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1213 off' turns the the data cache off.
1215 * Remote targets may have threads
1217 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1218 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1219 gdb/remote.c for details.
1223 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1224 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1225 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1226 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1227 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1228 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1229 sequence is something like
1231 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1233 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1237 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1238 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1239 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1240 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1241 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1242 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1243 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1244 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1248 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1249 but does simplify configuration and building.
1253 GDB now supports hpux10.
1255 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1257 * New native configurations
1259 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1260 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1261 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1262 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1266 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1267 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1268 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1269 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1272 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1274 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1275 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1276 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1277 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1278 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1280 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1282 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1283 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1286 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1288 To execute the command use:
1291 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1292 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1293 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1295 * New `if' and `while' commands
1297 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1298 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1299 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1300 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1301 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1302 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1303 if the expression is zero.
1305 * Fortran source language mode
1307 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1308 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1309 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1310 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1313 * Better HPUX support
1315 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1316 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1317 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1318 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1319 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1325 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1326 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1332 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1333 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1336 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1337 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1339 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1341 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1342 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1343 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1344 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1345 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1346 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1348 * New DOS host serial code
1350 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1351 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1354 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1356 * New "complete" command
1358 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1359 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1361 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1363 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1364 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1366 * Breakpoint hit counts
1368 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1369 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1370 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1371 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1372 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1375 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1377 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1378 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1379 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1381 * Shared library breakpoints
1383 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1384 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1386 * Hardware watchpoints
1388 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1389 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1391 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1395 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1396 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1398 * Improved Irix 5 support
1400 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1402 * Improved HPPA support
1404 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1406 * New native configurations
1408 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1409 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1410 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1411 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1415 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1416 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1419 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1421 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1422 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1426 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1427 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1429 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1431 * Irix 5 is now supported
1435 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1436 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1437 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1438 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1439 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1442 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1444 * User visible changes:
1448 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1449 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1450 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1451 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1452 debugging info for the mips target).
1454 * DEC Alpha native support
1456 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1457 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1458 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1459 Alpha-specific notes.
1461 * Preliminary thread implementation
1463 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1465 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1467 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1468 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1471 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1473 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1474 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1475 call methods, ...etc.
1477 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1479 * User visible changes:
1481 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1482 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1483 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1484 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1486 Filename completion now works.
1488 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1489 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1490 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1492 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1493 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1494 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1495 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1496 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1500 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1501 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1504 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1508 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1509 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1510 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1514 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1515 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1516 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1517 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1518 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1522 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1523 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1524 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1526 * New targets supported
1528 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1529 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1530 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1531 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1532 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1534 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1535 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1536 GO32 memory extender.
1538 * New remote protocols
1540 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1542 * New source languages supported
1544 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1545 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1546 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1549 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1551 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1553 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1554 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1555 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1556 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1557 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1558 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1560 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1562 * Faster and better demangling
1564 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1565 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1566 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1567 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1568 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1569 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1572 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1573 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1574 compiler does not actually implement.
1576 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1578 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1579 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1580 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1581 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1582 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1583 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1586 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1587 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1589 * Improved configure script
1591 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1592 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1593 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1594 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1596 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1597 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1598 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1599 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1600 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1601 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1603 * Documentation improvements
1605 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1606 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1607 before submitting changes.
1609 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1610 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1611 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1612 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1613 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1615 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1616 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1617 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1618 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1619 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1620 around this problem.
1624 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1625 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1626 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1629 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1630 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1632 * New native hosts supported
1634 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1635 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1637 * New targets supported
1639 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1641 * New file formats supported
1643 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1644 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1648 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1650 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1651 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1653 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1654 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1655 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1657 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1658 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1660 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1661 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1662 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1665 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1666 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1667 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1668 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1669 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1671 * Internal improvements
1673 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1674 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1676 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1677 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1678 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1679 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1680 shared code that handles any of them.
1682 * New command line options
1684 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1688 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1689 General Public License.
1691 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1693 * Host/native/target split
1695 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1696 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1697 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1698 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1699 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1701 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1702 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1703 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1704 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1705 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1706 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1707 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1709 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1710 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1711 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1713 * New hosts supported
1715 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1716 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1717 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1719 * New targets supported
1721 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1722 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1724 * New native hosts supported
1726 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1727 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1728 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1730 * New file formats supported
1732 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1733 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1734 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1738 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1739 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1740 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1742 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1744 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1745 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1746 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1747 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1751 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1752 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1753 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1755 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1759 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1760 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1763 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1764 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1766 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1767 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1768 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1769 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1770 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1771 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1773 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1774 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1775 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1776 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1780 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1781 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1782 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1783 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1784 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1786 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1787 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1788 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1789 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1793 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1794 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1795 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1796 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1797 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1798 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1799 each instruction being stepped through.
1801 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1802 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1804 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1805 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1806 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1807 processor with a serial port.
1811 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1812 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1813 supported, and what files each one uses.
1817 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1818 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1819 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1820 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1822 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1823 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1824 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1825 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1829 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1830 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1831 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1832 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1833 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1834 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1836 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1839 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1841 * Better support for C++ function names
1843 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1844 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1845 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1846 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1847 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1849 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1850 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1851 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1852 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1853 for the list of formats.
1855 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1857 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1858 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1859 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1860 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1861 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1862 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1865 * New 'maintenance' command
1867 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1868 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1869 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1871 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1872 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1873 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1874 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1875 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1876 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1878 The following commands are new:
1880 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1881 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1882 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1884 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1886 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1887 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1888 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1889 read after argv processing.
1891 * New hosts supported
1893 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1895 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1897 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1898 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1899 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1900 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1901 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1904 * New targets supported
1906 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1908 * More smarts about finding #include files
1910 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1911 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1912 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1913 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1914 the one that contains your sources.
1916 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1917 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1918 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1920 * Interesting infernals change
1922 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1923 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1924 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1925 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1927 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1929 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1930 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1931 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1933 See the ChangeLog for details.
1935 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1937 * New machines supported (host and target)
1939 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1941 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1943 * New malloc package
1945 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1946 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1947 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1948 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1949 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1950 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1954 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1955 'help info proc' for details.
1957 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1959 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1960 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1963 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1965 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1966 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1967 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1968 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1969 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1970 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1972 * Cross byte order fixes
1974 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1975 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1977 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1979 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1980 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1981 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1982 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1983 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1984 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1985 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1986 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1987 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1988 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1990 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1991 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1992 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1993 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1995 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1996 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1997 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2000 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2002 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2003 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2004 shared across multiple host platforms.
2006 * longjmp() handling
2008 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2009 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2010 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2011 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2015 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2016 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2021 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2022 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2023 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2025 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2027 * New machines supported (host and target)
2029 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2031 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2032 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2034 * New machines supported (target)
2036 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2040 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2041 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2042 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2044 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2045 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2046 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2047 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2048 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2051 * New features for SVR4
2053 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2054 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2055 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2057 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2058 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2059 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2061 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2062 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2064 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2066 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2067 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2068 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2069 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2070 same code linked statically.
2074 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2075 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2076 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2077 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2078 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2079 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2083 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2084 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2085 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2088 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2090 * New machines supported (host and target)
2092 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2093 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2094 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2096 * Almost SCO Unix support
2098 We had hoped to support:
2099 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2100 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2101 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2102 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2104 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2106 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2107 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2108 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2109 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2114 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2115 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2116 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2120 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2121 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2122 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2124 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2126 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2127 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2128 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2130 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2131 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2132 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2133 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2136 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2137 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2138 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2139 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2142 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2143 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2146 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2147 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2148 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2151 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2153 * Improved configuration
2155 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2156 Porting BFD is simpler.
2160 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2161 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2162 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2163 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2167 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2169 * New host supported (not target)
2171 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2174 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2176 * Multiple source language support
2178 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2179 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2180 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2181 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2182 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2183 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2187 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2188 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2189 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2190 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2192 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2193 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2194 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2196 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2197 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2201 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2202 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2203 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2204 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2207 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2209 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2210 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2211 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2212 examining core files.
2216 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2219 * New machines supported (host and target)
2221 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2222 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2223 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2225 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2227 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2229 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2231 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2232 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2233 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2235 * New remote interfaces
2241 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2245 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2247 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2248 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2249 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2250 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2251 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2252 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2253 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2254 stub on the target system.
2256 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2258 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2259 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2260 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2262 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2263 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2266 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2268 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2269 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2271 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2272 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2273 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2275 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2276 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2277 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2278 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2280 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2281 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2282 it is already running. Default is ON.
2284 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2285 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2286 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2287 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2290 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2291 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2292 or the value of the environment variable
2295 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2296 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2299 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2300 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2301 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2303 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2304 history expansion will be performed on
2305 command line input. The default is OFF.
2307 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2308 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2309 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2311 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2312 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2313 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2316 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2317 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2318 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2321 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2322 ``set width'' instead.
2324 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2325 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2326 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2327 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2329 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2332 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2335 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2338 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2341 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2343 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2344 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2345 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2349 * Support for Shared Libraries
2351 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2352 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2353 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2354 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2355 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2356 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2357 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2358 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2360 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2361 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2362 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2364 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2369 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2370 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2371 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2372 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2373 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2374 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2376 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2378 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2380 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2381 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2382 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2385 * C++ multiple inheritance
2387 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2390 * C++ exception handling
2392 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2393 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2394 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2397 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2398 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2399 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2401 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2402 current stack frame.
2405 * Minor command changes
2407 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2408 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2409 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2411 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2412 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2413 frames without printing.
2415 * New directory command
2417 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2418 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2419 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2420 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2421 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2423 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2425 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2428 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2429 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2430 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2431 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / external / binutils.git / blob