1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
6 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
7 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
8 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
9 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
12 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
13 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
15 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
16 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
17 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
18 target hardware watchpoint.
20 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
21 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
22 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
23 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
27 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
28 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
31 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
32 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
33 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
36 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
39 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
40 modules library. This module provides functionality for
41 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
42 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
45 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
46 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
47 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
50 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
51 static_block will return the global and static blocks
52 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
53 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
55 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
57 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
60 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
61 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
62 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
65 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
68 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
69 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
70 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
71 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
76 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
79 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
80 "=breakpoint-modified".
82 ** New command -ada-task-info.
84 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
85 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
86 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
89 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
90 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
91 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
92 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
93 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
95 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
96 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
98 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
99 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
100 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
101 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
102 use this option to specify where to find it.
104 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
105 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
106 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
107 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
108 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
109 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
110 section in the user manual for more details.
112 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
113 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
114 become available after that.
116 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
118 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
119 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
125 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
126 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
130 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
131 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
132 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
134 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
135 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
136 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
138 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
139 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
140 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
141 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
142 name starts with a hyphen.
144 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
145 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
146 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
147 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
148 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
149 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
150 number of bytes that will be collected.
153 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
154 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
155 setting the variable trace-notes.
158 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
159 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
160 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
163 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
164 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
165 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
166 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
167 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
170 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
171 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
172 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
178 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
179 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
180 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
181 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
184 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
185 show print entry-values
186 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
187 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
188 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
190 set debug entry-values
191 show debug entry-values
192 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
193 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
195 set basenames-may-differ
196 show basenames-may-differ
197 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
198 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
199 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
200 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
201 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
202 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
203 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
204 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
210 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
211 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
212 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
213 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
216 show trace-stop-notes
217 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
218 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
219 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
220 started by someone else.
226 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
230 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
234 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
238 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
242 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
245 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
246 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
250 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
254 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
256 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
258 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
260 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
262 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
263 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
264 matches the given regular expression.
266 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
268 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
269 dumping the instruction opcodes.
271 * New command line options
273 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
274 This is mostly for testing purposes.
276 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
277 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
279 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
280 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
281 source path list instead of augmenting it.
283 * GDB now understands thread names.
285 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
286 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
288 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
289 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
292 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
293 has been integrated into GDB.
297 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
298 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
299 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
301 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
302 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
303 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
304 and allows for more dynamic content.
306 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
307 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
308 have an is_valid method.
310 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
311 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
312 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
314 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
316 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
317 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
318 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
319 that function like so:
321 result = some_value (10,20)
323 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
324 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
325 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
327 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
328 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
329 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
330 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
331 New function: register_pretty_printer.
333 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
334 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
336 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
338 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
341 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
342 holds the thread's name.
344 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
345 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
346 occurring in the process being debugged.
347 The following events are currently supported:
348 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
349 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
350 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
354 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
355 instantiation. For example, if you have:
357 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
359 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
360 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
361 was added to GCC 4.5.
363 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
364 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
365 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
366 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
367 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
368 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
370 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
371 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
372 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
373 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
374 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
376 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
377 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
378 execution to a label.
380 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
381 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
382 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
383 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
385 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
386 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
387 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
390 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
392 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
393 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
394 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
395 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
396 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
397 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
400 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
402 While now you see this:
405 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
407 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
410 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
411 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
412 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
413 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
415 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
416 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
417 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
418 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
419 section in the user manual for more details.
421 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
423 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
424 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
426 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
428 * New native configurations
430 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
434 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
436 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
437 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
438 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
439 in the GDB user manual.
441 * Guile support was removed.
443 * New features in the GNU simulator
445 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
447 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
449 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
451 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
453 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
454 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
455 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
456 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
457 was always disabled for such configurations.
461 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
463 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
464 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
474 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
475 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
476 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
478 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
480 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
481 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
482 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
483 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
485 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
486 mentioned flavors of operators.
488 ** static const class members
490 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
491 class definition has been fixed.
493 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
495 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
496 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
497 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
498 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
499 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
500 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
504 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
505 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
506 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
507 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
508 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
509 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
510 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
511 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
512 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
513 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
514 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
515 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
516 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
517 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
518 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
519 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
520 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
521 the "New remote packets" section below.
523 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
525 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
526 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
527 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
528 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
532 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
533 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
534 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
535 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
536 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
537 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
538 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
540 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
547 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
551 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
552 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
553 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
554 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
555 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
556 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
560 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
564 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
567 qXfer:statictrace:read
569 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
570 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
571 to gdb's qSupported query.
575 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
579 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
580 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
582 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
583 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
586 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
588 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
589 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
590 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
591 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
593 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
594 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
595 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
596 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
597 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
598 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
599 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
601 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
602 for static tracepoints support.
604 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
606 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
607 it understands register description.
609 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
611 * X86 general purpose registers
613 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
614 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
615 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
616 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
617 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
619 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
620 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
621 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
622 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
623 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
624 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
626 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
627 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
628 in the specified file.
630 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
631 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
632 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
633 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
634 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
635 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
636 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
637 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
638 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
639 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
643 eval template, expressions...
644 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
645 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
647 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
648 show target-file-system-kind
649 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
652 save breakpoints <filename>
653 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
654 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
655 definitions, use the `source' command.
657 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
660 info static-tracepoint-markers
661 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
663 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
664 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
665 function, line, address, or marker ID.
669 Enable and disable observer mode.
671 set may-write-registers on|off
672 set may-write-memory on|off
673 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
674 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
675 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
676 set may-interrupt on|off
677 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
678 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
679 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
680 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
681 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
682 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
683 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
685 set record memory-query on|off
686 show record memory-query
687 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
688 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
693 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
697 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
698 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
699 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
700 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
701 GDB using Python' in the manual.
703 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
704 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
705 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
706 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
708 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
709 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
711 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
713 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
715 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
717 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
718 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
719 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
721 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
722 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
723 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
728 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
730 * D language support.
731 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
734 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
735 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
736 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
737 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
738 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
740 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
741 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
742 conditions of the form:
744 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
746 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
747 interface mentioned above.
749 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
755 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
756 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
757 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
758 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
759 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
763 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
764 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
769 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
770 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
774 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
779 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
782 * Multi-program debugging.
784 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
785 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
786 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
787 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
788 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
789 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
790 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
791 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
793 * New tracing features
795 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
797 ** Trace state variables
799 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
800 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
801 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
802 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
803 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
804 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
805 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
806 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
807 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
808 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
812 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
813 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
814 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
815 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
816 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
817 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
818 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
819 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
820 the regular trace command.
822 ** Disconnected tracing
824 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
825 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
826 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
827 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
828 connection is lost unexpectedly.
832 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
833 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
834 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
835 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
836 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
837 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
840 ** Circular trace buffer
842 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
843 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
844 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
845 not be available for all target agents.
850 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
851 the arguments to be comma-separated.
854 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
855 which only declare a variable are not shown.
858 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
859 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
862 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
863 "set script-extension" (see below).
865 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
867 record save [<FILENAME>]
868 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
869 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
871 record restore <FILENAME>
872 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
873 earlier time, for replay debugging.
875 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
878 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
879 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
885 maint info program-spaces
886 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
888 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
889 show remote interrupt-sequence
890 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
891 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
892 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
893 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
894 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
896 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
897 show remote interrupt-on-connect
898 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
899 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
902 set remotebreak [on | off]
904 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
906 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
907 Create or modify a trace state variable.
910 List trace state variables and their values.
912 delete tvariable $NAME ...
913 Delete one or more trace state variables.
916 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
917 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
919 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
920 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
922 * New expression syntax
924 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
925 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
929 set follow-exec-mode new|same
930 show follow-exec-mode
931 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
932 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
933 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
935 set default-collect EXPR, ...
937 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
938 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
939 such as registers or a critical global variable.
941 set disconnected-tracing
942 show disconnected-tracing
943 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
944 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
947 set circular-trace-buffer
948 show circular-trace-buffer
949 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
950 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
951 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
952 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
954 set script-extension off|soft|strict
955 show script-extension
956 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
957 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
958 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
959 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
961 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
963 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
964 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
965 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
966 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
967 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
968 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
969 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
972 * Python API Improvements
974 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
975 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
976 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
978 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
979 `is_base_class' attribute.
981 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
983 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
984 evaluate an expression.
989 Define a trace state variable.
992 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
995 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
998 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1001 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1005 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1007 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1008 much more reliable. In particular:
1009 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1010 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1011 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1012 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1013 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1014 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1015 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1016 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1017 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1018 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1019 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1020 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1021 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1022 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1023 non-threaded programs.
1025 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1026 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1027 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1030 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1032 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1033 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1034 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1035 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1036 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1038 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1039 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1040 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1041 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1042 for tracepoint actions.
1044 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1045 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1046 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1048 * Process record and replay
1050 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1051 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1052 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1055 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1056 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1057 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1060 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1061 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1064 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1065 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1066 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1067 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1068 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1069 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1070 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1071 the installation instructions for more information.
1073 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1074 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1075 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1076 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1078 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1079 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1081 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1082 now complete on file names.
1084 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1085 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1086 For instance, consider:
1088 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1089 # struct example variable;
1092 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1093 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1095 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1096 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1098 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1099 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1102 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1103 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1104 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1106 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1107 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1108 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1109 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1111 * New remote packets
1114 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1117 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1118 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1119 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1122 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1123 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1126 Obtains additional operating system information
1130 Read or write additional signal information.
1132 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1134 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1135 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1136 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1138 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1139 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1141 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1142 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1143 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1145 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1146 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1148 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1150 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1152 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1153 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1155 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1156 list of section offsets.
1158 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1159 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1160 have also been fixed.
1162 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1163 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1164 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1166 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1169 template<typename T> class C { };
1172 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1174 ptype C<char const *>
1175 ptype C<char const*>
1176 ptype C<const char *>
1177 ptype C<const char*>
1179 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1181 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1182 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1184 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1185 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1186 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1188 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1189 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1191 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1194 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1195 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1197 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1198 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1203 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1204 available is determined at configure time.
1206 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1208 * Ada tasking support
1210 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1214 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1216 Print detailed information about task number N.
1218 Print the task number of the current task.
1220 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1222 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1223 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1225 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1227 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1228 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1229 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1230 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1231 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1232 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1235 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1236 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1239 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1240 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1241 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1242 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1245 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1247 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1248 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1249 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1250 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1251 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1253 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1254 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1255 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1256 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1257 --enable-targets configure option.
1259 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1261 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1262 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1263 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1264 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1265 section in the user manual for more information.
1267 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1268 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1269 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1270 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1271 extensions on linux targets.
1273 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1275 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1276 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1277 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1278 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1279 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1280 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1281 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1282 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1283 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1285 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1287 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1289 maint set python print-stack
1290 maint show python print-stack
1291 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1294 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1299 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1303 Show operating system information about processes.
1306 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1309 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1312 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1315 Kill inferior number NUM.
1319 set spu stop-on-load
1320 show spu stop-on-load
1321 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1323 set spu auto-flush-cache
1324 show spu auto-flush-cache
1325 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1326 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1328 set sh calling-convention
1329 show sh calling-convention
1330 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1333 show debug timestamp
1334 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1336 set disassemble-next-line
1337 show disassemble-next-line
1338 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1341 set remote noack-packet
1342 show remote noack-packet
1343 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1344 under "New remote packets."
1346 set remote query-attached-packet
1347 show remote query-attached-packet
1348 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1350 set remote read-siginfo-object
1351 show remote read-siginfo-object
1352 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1355 set remote write-siginfo-object
1356 show remote write-siginfo-object
1357 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1360 set remote reverse-continue
1361 show remote reverse-continue
1362 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1364 set remote reverse-step
1365 show remote reverse-step
1366 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1368 set displaced-stepping
1369 show displaced-stepping
1370 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1371 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1372 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1375 show debug displaced
1376 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1378 maint set internal-error
1379 maint show internal-error
1380 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1382 maint set internal-warning
1383 maint show internal-warning
1384 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1389 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1391 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1392 show multiple-symbols
1393 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1394 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1395 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1397 set breakpoint always-inserted
1398 show breakpoint always-inserted
1399 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1400 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1401 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1403 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1404 show arm fallback-mode
1405 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1407 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1408 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1409 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1410 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1412 set disable-randomization
1413 show disable-randomization
1414 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1415 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1416 multiple debugging sessions.
1420 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1425 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1426 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1427 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1428 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1430 set target-wide-charset
1431 show target-wide-charset
1432 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1433 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1435 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1437 set tcp connect-timeout
1438 show tcp connect-timeout
1439 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1440 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1441 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1443 set libthread-db-search-path
1444 show libthread-db-search-path
1445 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1448 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1449 show schedule-multiple
1450 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1451 the current process.
1455 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1456 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1457 affecting correctness.
1459 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1460 show interactive-mode
1461 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1462 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1463 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1464 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1465 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1470 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1471 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1472 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1476 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1477 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1478 alias for the `fork' command.
1481 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1482 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1483 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1486 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1487 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1488 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1492 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1493 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1494 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1497 * New native configurations
1499 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1501 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1505 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1506 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1507 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1510 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1511 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1517 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1519 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1521 * New native configurations
1523 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1524 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1528 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1529 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1531 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1533 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1534 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1535 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1536 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1538 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1539 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1541 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1544 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1545 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1546 and in inlined functions.
1548 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1549 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1550 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1552 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1554 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1555 registers on PowerPC targets.
1557 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1558 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1560 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1561 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1563 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1564 extended-remote mode.
1566 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1567 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1568 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1569 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1571 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1572 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1573 target architectures.
1575 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1576 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1577 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1578 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1580 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1583 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1584 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1586 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1587 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1588 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1589 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1591 - Improved command completion in Ada
1594 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1599 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1600 show print frame-arguments
1601 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1602 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1607 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1614 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1616 * New remote packets
1623 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1626 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1630 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1632 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1634 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1635 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1636 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1638 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1639 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1640 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1642 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1643 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1646 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1647 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1649 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1650 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1652 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1654 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1655 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1656 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1658 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1659 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1661 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1662 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1665 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1666 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1667 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1669 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1672 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1673 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1674 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1676 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1678 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1680 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1681 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1682 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1684 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1685 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1687 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1688 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1689 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1690 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1691 Windows and SymbianOS).
1693 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1694 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1696 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1697 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1703 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1704 when debugging using remote targets.
1706 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1707 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1708 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1709 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1710 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1711 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1712 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1714 set breakpoint auto-hw
1715 show breakpoint auto-hw
1716 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1717 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1718 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1719 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1720 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1721 including "next" and "finish".
1724 catch exception unhandled
1725 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1728 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1732 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1733 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1734 an alias to "set sysroot".
1737 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1738 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1741 * New native configurations
1743 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1746 unset tdesc filename
1748 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1749 not query the target for its built-in description.
1753 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1754 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1755 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1757 * New remote packets
1760 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1761 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1763 qXfer:features:read:
1764 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1769 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1770 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1772 qXfer:libraries:read:
1773 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1774 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1775 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1776 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1780 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1788 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1789 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1790 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1791 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1793 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1796 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1797 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1806 * Other removed features
1813 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1820 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1825 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1826 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1831 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1832 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1834 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1836 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1837 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1838 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1839 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1841 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1843 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1844 in debugging information.
1848 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1849 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1851 set mips stack-arg-size
1852 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1854 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1856 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1861 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1863 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1864 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1865 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1867 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1868 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1871 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1872 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1874 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1875 stub provides the required support.
1877 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1878 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1883 unset substitute-path
1884 show substitute-path
1885 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1886 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1887 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1888 between compilation and debugging.
1892 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1893 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1894 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1898 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1900 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1901 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1903 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1905 * New remote packets
1908 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1909 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1910 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1911 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1915 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1916 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1918 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1919 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1920 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1925 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1927 * Removed remote packets
1930 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1931 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1933 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1937 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1939 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1943 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1944 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1946 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1948 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1950 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1951 previously saved state.
1953 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1955 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1957 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1958 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1960 info forks List forks of the user program that
1961 are available to be debugged.
1963 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1964 forks of the user program that are
1965 available to be debugged.
1967 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1968 that are available to be debugged (and
1969 kill the forked process).
1971 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1972 that are available to be debugged (and
1973 allow the process to continue).
1977 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1979 * Improved Windows host support
1981 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1982 native console support, and remote communications using either
1983 network sockets or serial ports.
1985 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1987 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1988 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1989 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1990 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1991 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1992 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1996 The ARM rdi-share module.
1998 The Netware NLM debug server.
2000 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2002 * New native configurations
2004 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2005 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2009 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2011 * New command line options
2013 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2014 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2015 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2016 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2017 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2018 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2019 with the --command (-x) option.
2021 * Deprecated commands removed
2023 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2027 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2028 othernames set arm disassembler
2029 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2030 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2031 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2034 * New BSD user-level threads support
2036 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2037 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2040 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2041 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2042 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2044 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2045 are not yet supported.
2047 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2048 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2050 * REMOVED configurations and files
2052 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2053 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2054 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2056 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2058 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2059 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2062 * VAX floating point support
2064 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2066 * User-defined command support
2068 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2069 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2070 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2072 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2074 * New command line option
2076 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2079 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2081 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2082 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2083 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2084 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2085 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2087 * Internationalization
2089 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2090 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2091 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2095 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2096 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2097 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2099 * New native configurations
2101 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2105 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2106 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2108 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2110 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2111 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2112 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2115 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2116 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2117 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2127 powerpc bdm protocol
2129 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2130 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2132 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2134 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2135 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2136 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2137 permanently REMOVED.
2146 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2148 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2150 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2151 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2154 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2156 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2157 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2158 IRIX long double values).
2162 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2163 command. This problem has been fixed.
2165 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2167 * Fix for ``many threads''
2169 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2170 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2173 ptrace: No such process.
2174 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2176 This problem has been fixed.
2178 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2180 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2183 * New ``start'' command.
2185 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2187 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2189 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2190 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2191 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2193 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2194 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2195 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2196 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2197 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2198 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2199 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2200 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2201 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2203 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2205 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2206 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2207 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2208 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2209 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2211 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2212 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2213 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2215 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2217 * New native configurations
2219 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2220 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2221 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2222 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2223 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2224 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2225 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2227 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2229 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2230 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2231 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2232 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2233 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2234 work, was also included.
2236 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2237 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2247 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2248 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2250 * REMOVED configurations and files
2252 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2253 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2254 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2255 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2256 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2257 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2258 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2259 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2260 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2261 sonymips mips-sony-*
2262 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2264 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2266 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2268 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2269 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2270 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2271 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2274 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2276 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2277 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2278 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2279 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2280 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2281 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2284 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2286 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2288 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2289 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2290 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2292 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2294 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2295 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2297 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2299 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2300 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2301 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2303 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2305 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2306 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2308 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2310 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2311 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2312 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2314 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2316 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2317 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2318 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2320 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2322 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2324 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2325 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2327 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2329 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2330 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2331 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2332 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2334 * Revised SPARC target
2336 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2337 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2338 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2339 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2340 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2344 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2345 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2346 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2349 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2351 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2352 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2355 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2357 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2358 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2359 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2360 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2361 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2362 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2363 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2364 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2365 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2367 * New native configurations
2369 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2370 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2371 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2372 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2373 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2375 * New debugging protocols
2377 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2379 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2381 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2382 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2383 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2385 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2387 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2388 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2389 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2390 permanently REMOVED.
2392 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2393 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2394 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2395 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2396 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2397 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2398 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2399 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2400 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2401 sonymips mips-sony-*
2402 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2404 * REMOVED configurations and files
2406 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2407 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2408 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2409 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2410 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2411 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2412 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2413 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2414 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2415 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2416 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2417 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2418 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2419 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2420 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2421 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2422 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2424 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2428 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2429 integrated into GDB.
2431 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2433 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2434 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2435 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2438 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2439 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2440 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2444 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2445 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2446 remote protocol documentation for details.
2448 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2450 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2451 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2452 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2455 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2457 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2458 per-thread variables.
2460 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2462 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2463 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2465 * Separate debug info.
2467 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2468 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2469 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2470 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2471 and optional debug files.
2473 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2475 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2476 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2479 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2480 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2484 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2485 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2486 considered "useable".
2488 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2490 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2491 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2494 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2496 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2497 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2499 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2501 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2502 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2505 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2507 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2508 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2512 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2513 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2514 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2515 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2516 data, for more informative profiling results.
2518 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2520 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2521 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2522 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2524 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2527 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2528 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2529 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2530 in a subsequent -var-update.
2532 * New native configurations.
2534 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2536 * Multi-arched targets.
2538 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2539 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2541 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2543 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2544 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2545 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2546 permanently REMOVED.
2548 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2549 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2550 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2551 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2552 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2553 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2554 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2555 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2556 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2557 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2558 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2559 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2561 * REMOVED configurations and files
2564 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2565 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2566 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2567 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2568 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2569 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2571 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2572 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2573 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2574 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2575 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2576 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2578 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2580 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2581 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2582 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2583 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2584 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2586 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2588 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2590 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2591 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2592 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2593 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2594 shared libs like mad''.
2596 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2598 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2599 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2600 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2601 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2603 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2605 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2606 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2609 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2610 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2612 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2613 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2615 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2616 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2617 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2618 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2620 * Multi-arched targets.
2622 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2623 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2625 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2626 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2627 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2631 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2634 * New native configurations
2636 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2637 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2638 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2639 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2641 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2643 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2644 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2645 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2646 permanently REMOVED.
2648 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2649 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2650 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2651 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2652 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2653 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2654 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2655 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2656 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2657 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2659 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2660 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2662 * OBSOLETE languages
2664 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2666 * REMOVED configurations and files
2668 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2669 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2670 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2671 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2672 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2674 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2676 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2678 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2679 commands. The default is 1024.
2681 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2683 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2685 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2687 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2688 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2689 from a file into memory (restore).
2691 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2693 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2694 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2695 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2697 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2705 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2706 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2707 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2709 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2710 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2711 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2713 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2714 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2715 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2717 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2718 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2719 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2721 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2723 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2725 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2726 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2727 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2728 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2729 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2730 (notably embedded) targets.
2732 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2734 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2735 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2736 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2737 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2739 * New command line option
2741 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2743 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2745 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2746 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2747 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2748 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2749 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2750 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2751 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2752 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2753 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2754 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2756 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2758 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2759 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2761 * New native configurations
2763 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2764 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2765 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2766 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2770 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2772 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2774 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2775 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2776 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2777 permanently REMOVED.
2779 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2780 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2781 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2782 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2783 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2785 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2787 * REMOVED configurations and files
2789 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2791 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2792 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2793 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2794 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2795 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2796 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2797 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2798 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2799 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2800 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2801 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2803 * Changes to command line processing
2805 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2806 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2808 * Changes to key bindings
2810 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2812 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2814 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2816 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2819 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2821 Numerous documentation fixes.
2823 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2825 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2827 * New native configurations
2829 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2830 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2831 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2832 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2833 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2834 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2838 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2840 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2842 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2844 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2845 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2846 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2847 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2848 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2850 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2851 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2852 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2853 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2854 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2855 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2856 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2857 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2859 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2860 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2862 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2863 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2864 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2865 permanently REMOVED.
2867 * REMOVED configurations and files
2869 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2870 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2872 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2876 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2878 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2879 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2884 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2886 * The MI enabled by default.
2888 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2889 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2890 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2891 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2892 which is now deprecated.
2894 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2896 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2897 main features are supported:
2899 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2901 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2904 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2906 - a Pascal expression parser.
2908 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2910 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2912 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2914 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2915 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2917 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2919 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2921 * Changes in completion.
2923 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2924 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2925 users expect at the shell prompt.
2927 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2928 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2929 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2930 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2931 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2932 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2933 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2935 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2937 * New platform-independent commands:
2939 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2940 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2941 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2943 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2945 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2946 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2947 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2949 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2951 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2952 multi-threaded programs though.
2954 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2956 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2958 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2959 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2962 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2964 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2965 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2966 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2967 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2968 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2971 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2972 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2973 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2975 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2977 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2978 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2980 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2981 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2984 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2985 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2986 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2987 a given linear address.
2989 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2990 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2991 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2993 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2995 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2997 * Changes in documentation.
2999 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3000 Documentation License.
3002 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3005 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3007 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3010 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3011 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3012 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3014 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3016 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3017 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3018 contents of this file.
3022 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3024 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3026 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3028 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3029 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3030 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3031 greater level of detail.
3033 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3035 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3036 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3037 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3040 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3042 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3043 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3044 machines ``out of the box''.
3046 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3047 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3048 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3049 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3050 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3052 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3053 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3054 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3055 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3056 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3058 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3059 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3062 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3065 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3066 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3067 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3068 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3070 * New native configurations
3072 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3073 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3077 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3078 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3079 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3080 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3082 * OBSOLETE configurations
3084 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3085 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3087 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3090 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3091 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3092 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3093 be permanently REMOVED.
3095 * Gould support removed
3097 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3099 * New features for SVR4
3101 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3102 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3103 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3105 * Many C++ enhancements
3107 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3108 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3110 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3112 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3113 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3114 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3115 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3117 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3118 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3120 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3122 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3123 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3124 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3126 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3127 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3129 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3131 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3132 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3133 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3135 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3137 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3138 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3139 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3141 * ``apropos'' command added.
3143 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3144 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3145 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3149 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3150 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3151 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3152 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3153 enabled by configuring with:
3155 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3157 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3159 * New native configurations
3161 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3162 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3163 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3167 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3168 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3169 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3171 * OBSOLETE configurations
3173 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3175 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3176 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3177 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3178 be permanently REMOVED.
3182 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3183 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3184 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3185 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3186 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3187 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3188 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3193 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3195 * set extension-language
3197 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3198 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3199 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3200 set extension-language .c c++
3201 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3202 and their associated languages.
3204 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3206 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3207 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3208 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3212 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3213 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3215 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3216 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3218 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3219 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3220 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3221 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3222 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3223 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3224 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3225 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3227 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3228 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3229 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3230 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3234 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3235 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3236 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3237 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3238 for xdb and dbx commands.
3242 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3243 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3244 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3246 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3247 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3248 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3250 * Debugging across forks
3252 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3257 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3258 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3259 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3261 * GDB remote protocol additions
3263 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3264 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3265 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3266 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3268 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3269 full 64-bit address. The command
3271 set remoteaddresssize 32
3273 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3274 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3277 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3278 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3280 maint packet heythere
3282 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3283 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3286 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3287 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3288 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3290 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3292 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3293 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3294 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3296 * mask-address variable for Mips
3298 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3299 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3300 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3302 * Higher serial baud rates
3304 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3305 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3306 to achieve all of these rates.)
3310 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3311 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3314 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3316 * New native configurations
3318 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3319 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3320 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3321 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3322 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3323 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3324 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3328 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3329 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3330 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3331 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3332 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3333 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3334 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3335 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3336 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3337 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3338 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3340 * New debugging protocols
3342 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3343 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3344 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3345 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3346 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3347 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3351 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3352 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3357 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3358 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3360 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3362 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3363 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3364 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3366 * Live range splitting
3368 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3369 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3370 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3374 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3375 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3379 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3380 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3381 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3386 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3391 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3392 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3393 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3394 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3395 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3396 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3400 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3401 the symbol at the specified address.
3405 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3406 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3407 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3408 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3409 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3413 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3414 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3415 of most MIPS variants.
3419 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3420 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3421 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3425 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3426 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3427 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3428 the possible architectures.
3430 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3432 * New native configurations
3434 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3435 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3436 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3437 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3438 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3439 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3443 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3444 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3445 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3446 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3447 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3449 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3453 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3454 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3455 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3456 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3457 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3461 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3463 * Windows 95/NT native
3465 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3466 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3467 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3468 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3469 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3471 * dont-repeat command
3473 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3474 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3475 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3476 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3478 * Send break instead of ^C
3480 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3481 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3482 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3484 * Remote protocol timeout
3486 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3487 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3488 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3490 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3492 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3493 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3494 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3495 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3496 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3498 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3499 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3500 automatically on hpux10.
3502 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3504 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3506 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3508 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3509 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3510 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3511 every character. The default value is 1050.
3513 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3515 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3516 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3517 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3518 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3519 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3520 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3522 * Speedups for remote debugging
3524 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3525 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3526 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3528 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3530 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3531 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3533 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3535 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3537 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3538 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3540 * Remote targets use caching
3542 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3543 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3544 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3545 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3546 off' turns the the data cache off.
3548 * Remote targets may have threads
3550 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3551 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3552 gdb/remote.c for details.
3556 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3557 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3558 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3559 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3560 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3561 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3562 sequence is something like
3564 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3566 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3570 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3571 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3572 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3573 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3574 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3575 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3576 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3577 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3581 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3582 but does simplify configuration and building.
3586 GDB now supports hpux10.
3588 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3590 * New native configurations
3592 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3593 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3594 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3595 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3599 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3600 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3601 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3602 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3605 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3607 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3608 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3609 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3610 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3611 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3613 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3615 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3616 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3619 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3621 To execute the command use:
3624 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3625 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3626 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3628 * New `if' and `while' commands
3630 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3631 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3632 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3633 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3634 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3635 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3636 if the expression is zero.
3638 * Fortran source language mode
3640 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3641 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3642 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3643 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3646 * Better HPUX support
3648 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3649 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3650 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3651 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3652 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3658 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3659 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3665 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3666 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3669 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3670 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3672 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3674 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3675 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3676 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3677 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3678 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3679 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3681 * New DOS host serial code
3683 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3684 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3687 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3689 * New "complete" command
3691 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3692 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3694 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3696 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3697 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3699 * Breakpoint hit counts
3701 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3702 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3703 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3704 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3705 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3708 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3710 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3711 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3712 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3714 * Shared library breakpoints
3716 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3717 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3719 * Hardware watchpoints
3721 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3722 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3724 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3728 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3729 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3731 * Improved Irix 5 support
3733 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3735 * Improved HPPA support
3737 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3739 * New native configurations
3741 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3742 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3743 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3744 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3748 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3749 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3752 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3754 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3755 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3759 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3760 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3762 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3764 * Irix 5 is now supported
3768 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3769 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3770 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3771 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3772 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3775 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3777 * User visible changes:
3781 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3782 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3783 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3784 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3785 debugging info for the mips target).
3787 * DEC Alpha native support
3789 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3790 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3791 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3792 Alpha-specific notes.
3794 * Preliminary thread implementation
3796 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3798 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3800 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3801 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3804 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3806 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3807 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3808 call methods, ...etc.
3810 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3812 * User visible changes:
3814 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3815 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3816 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3817 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3819 Filename completion now works.
3821 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3822 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3823 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3825 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3826 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3827 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3828 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3829 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3833 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3834 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3837 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3841 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3842 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3843 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3847 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3848 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3849 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3850 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3851 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3855 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3856 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3857 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3859 * New targets supported
3861 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3862 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3863 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3864 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3865 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3867 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3868 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3869 GO32 memory extender.
3871 * New remote protocols
3873 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3875 * New source languages supported
3877 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3878 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3879 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3882 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3884 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3886 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3887 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3888 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3889 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3890 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3891 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3893 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3895 * Faster and better demangling
3897 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3898 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3899 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3900 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3901 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3902 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3905 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3906 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3907 compiler does not actually implement.
3909 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3911 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3912 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3913 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3914 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3915 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3916 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3919 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3920 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3922 * Improved configure script
3924 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3925 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3926 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3927 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3929 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3930 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3931 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3932 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3933 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3934 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3936 * Documentation improvements
3938 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3939 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3940 before submitting changes.
3942 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3943 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3944 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3945 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3946 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3948 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3949 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3950 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3951 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3952 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3953 around this problem.
3957 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3958 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3959 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3962 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3963 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3965 * New native hosts supported
3967 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3968 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3970 * New targets supported
3972 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3974 * New file formats supported
3976 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3977 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3981 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3983 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3984 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3986 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3987 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3988 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3990 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3991 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3993 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3994 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3995 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3998 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3999 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4000 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4001 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4002 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4004 * Internal improvements
4006 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4007 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4009 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4010 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4011 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4012 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4013 shared code that handles any of them.
4015 * New command line options
4017 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4021 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4022 General Public License.
4024 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4026 * Host/native/target split
4028 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4029 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4030 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4031 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4032 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4034 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4035 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4036 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4037 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4038 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4039 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4040 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4042 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4043 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4044 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4046 * New hosts supported
4048 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4049 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4050 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4052 * New targets supported
4054 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4055 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4057 * New native hosts supported
4059 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4060 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4061 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4063 * New file formats supported
4065 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4066 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4067 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4071 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4072 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4073 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4075 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4077 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4078 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4079 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4080 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4084 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4085 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4086 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4088 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4092 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4093 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4096 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4097 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4099 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4100 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4101 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4102 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4103 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4104 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4106 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4107 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4108 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4109 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4113 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4114 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4115 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4116 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4117 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4119 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4120 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4121 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4122 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4126 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4127 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4128 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4129 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4130 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4131 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4132 each instruction being stepped through.
4134 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4135 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4137 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4138 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4139 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4140 processor with a serial port.
4144 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4145 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4146 supported, and what files each one uses.
4150 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4151 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4152 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4153 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4155 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4156 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4157 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4158 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4162 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4163 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4164 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4165 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4166 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4167 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4169 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4172 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4174 * Better support for C++ function names
4176 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4177 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4178 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4179 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4180 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4182 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4183 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4184 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4185 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4186 for the list of formats.
4188 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4190 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4191 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4192 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4193 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4194 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4195 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4198 * New 'maintenance' command
4200 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4201 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4202 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4204 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4205 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4206 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4207 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4208 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4209 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4211 The following commands are new:
4213 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4214 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4215 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4217 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4219 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4220 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4221 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4222 read after argv processing.
4224 * New hosts supported
4226 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4228 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4230 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4231 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4232 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4233 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4234 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4237 * New targets supported
4239 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4241 * More smarts about finding #include files
4243 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4244 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4245 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4246 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4247 the one that contains your sources.
4249 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4250 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4251 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4253 * Interesting infernals change
4255 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4256 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4257 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4258 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4260 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4262 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4263 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4264 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4266 See the ChangeLog for details.
4268 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4270 * New machines supported (host and target)
4272 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4274 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4276 * New malloc package
4278 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4279 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4280 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4281 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4282 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4283 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4287 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4288 'help info proc' for details.
4290 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4292 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4293 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4296 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4298 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4299 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4300 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4301 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4302 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4303 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4305 * Cross byte order fixes
4307 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4308 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4310 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4312 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4313 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4314 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4315 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4316 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4317 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4318 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4319 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4320 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4321 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4323 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4324 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4325 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4326 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4328 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4329 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4330 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4333 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4335 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4336 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4337 shared across multiple host platforms.
4339 * longjmp() handling
4341 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4342 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4343 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4344 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4348 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4349 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4354 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4355 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4356 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4358 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4360 * New machines supported (host and target)
4362 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4364 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4365 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4367 * New machines supported (target)
4369 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4373 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4374 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4375 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4377 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4378 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4379 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4380 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4381 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4384 * New features for SVR4
4386 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4387 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4388 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4390 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4391 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4392 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4394 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4395 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4397 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4399 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4400 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4401 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4402 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4403 same code linked statically.
4407 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4408 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4409 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4410 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4411 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4412 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4416 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4417 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4418 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4421 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4423 * New machines supported (host and target)
4425 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4426 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4427 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4429 * Almost SCO Unix support
4431 We had hoped to support:
4432 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4433 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4434 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4435 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4437 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4439 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4440 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4441 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4442 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4447 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4448 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4449 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4453 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4454 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4455 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4457 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4459 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4460 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4461 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4463 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4464 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4465 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4466 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4469 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4470 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4471 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4472 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4475 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4476 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4479 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4480 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4481 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4484 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4486 * Improved configuration
4488 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4489 Porting BFD is simpler.
4493 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4494 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4495 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4496 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4500 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4502 * New host supported (not target)
4504 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4507 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4509 * Multiple source language support
4511 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4512 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4513 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4514 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4515 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4516 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4520 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4521 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4522 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4523 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4525 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4526 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4527 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4529 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4530 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4534 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4535 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4536 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4537 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4540 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4542 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4543 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4544 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4545 examining core files.
4549 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4552 * New machines supported (host and target)
4554 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4555 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4556 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4558 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4560 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4562 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4564 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4565 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4566 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4568 * New remote interfaces
4574 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4578 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4580 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4581 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4582 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4583 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4584 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4585 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4586 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4587 stub on the target system.
4589 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4591 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4592 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4593 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4595 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4596 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4599 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4601 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4602 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4604 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4605 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4606 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4608 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4609 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4610 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4611 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4613 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4614 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4615 it is already running. Default is ON.
4617 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4618 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4619 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4620 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4623 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4624 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4625 or the value of the environment variable
4628 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4629 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4632 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4633 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4634 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4636 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4637 history expansion will be performed on
4638 command line input. The default is OFF.
4640 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4641 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4642 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4644 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4645 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4646 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4649 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4650 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4651 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4654 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4655 ``set width'' instead.
4657 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4658 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4659 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4660 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4662 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4665 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4668 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4671 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4674 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4676 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4677 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4678 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4682 * Support for Shared Libraries
4684 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4685 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4686 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4687 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4688 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4689 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4690 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4691 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4693 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4694 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4695 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4697 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4702 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4703 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4704 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4705 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4706 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4707 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4709 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4711 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4713 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4714 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4715 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4718 * C++ multiple inheritance
4720 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4723 * C++ exception handling
4725 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4726 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4727 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4730 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4731 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4732 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4734 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4735 current stack frame.
4738 * Minor command changes
4740 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4741 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4742 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4744 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4745 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4746 frames without printing.
4748 * New directory command
4750 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4751 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4752 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4753 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4754 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4756 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4758 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4761 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4762 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4763 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4764 where the program that you are debugging will run.