1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
6 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
8 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
9 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
10 "mi1", can be enabled by sepcifying the option "-i=mi1".
12 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
15 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
16 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
17 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
18 in a subsequent -var-update.
20 * REMOVED configurations and files
24 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
26 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
27 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
28 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
29 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
30 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
32 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
34 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
36 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
37 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
38 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
39 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
41 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
43 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
44 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
47 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
48 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
50 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
51 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
53 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
54 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
55 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
56 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
58 * Multi-arched targets.
60 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
61 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
63 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
64 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
65 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
69 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
72 * New native configurations
74 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
75 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
76 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
77 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
79 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
81 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
82 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
83 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
86 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
87 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
88 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
89 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
90 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
91 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
92 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
93 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
94 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
95 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
97 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
98 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
102 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
104 * REMOVED configurations and files
106 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
107 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
108 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
109 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
110 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
112 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
114 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
116 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
117 commands. The default is 1024.
119 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
121 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
123 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
125 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
126 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
127 from a file into memory (restore).
129 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
131 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
132 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
133 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
135 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
143 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
144 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
145 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
147 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
148 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
149 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
151 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
152 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
153 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
155 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
156 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
157 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
159 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
161 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
163 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
164 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
165 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
166 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
167 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
168 (notably embedded) targets.
170 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
172 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
173 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
174 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
175 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
177 * New command line option
179 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
181 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
183 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
184 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
185 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
186 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
187 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
188 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
189 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
190 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
191 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
192 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
194 * Changes in ARM configurations.
196 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
197 configuration is fully multi-arch.
199 * New native configurations
201 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
202 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
203 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
204 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
208 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
210 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
212 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
213 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
214 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
217 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
218 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
219 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
220 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
221 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
223 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
225 * REMOVED configurations and files
227 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
229 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
230 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
231 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
232 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
233 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
234 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
235 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
236 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
237 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
238 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
239 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
241 * Changes to command line processing
243 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
244 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
246 * Changes to key bindings
248 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
250 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
252 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
254 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
257 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
259 Numerous documentation fixes.
261 Numerous testsuite fixes.
263 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
265 * New native configurations
267 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
268 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
269 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
270 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
272 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
276 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
278 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
280 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
282 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
283 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
284 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
285 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
286 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
288 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
289 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
290 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
291 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
292 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
293 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
294 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
295 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
297 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
298 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
300 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
301 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
302 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
305 * REMOVED configurations and files
307 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
308 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
310 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
314 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
316 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
317 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
322 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
324 * The MI enabled by default.
326 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
327 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
328 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
329 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
330 which is now deprecated.
332 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
334 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
335 main features are supported:
337 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
339 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
342 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
344 - a Pascal expression parser.
346 However, some important features are not yet supported.
348 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
350 - there are some problems with boolean types;
352 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
353 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
355 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
357 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
359 * Changes in completion.
361 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
362 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
363 users expect at the shell prompt.
365 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
366 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
367 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
368 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
369 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
370 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
371 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
373 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
375 * New platform-independent commands:
377 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
378 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
379 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
381 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
383 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
384 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
385 many threads as your system allows you to have.
387 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
389 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
390 multi-threaded programs though.
392 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
394 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
396 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
397 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
400 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
402 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
403 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
404 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
405 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
406 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
409 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
410 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
411 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
413 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
415 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
416 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
418 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
419 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
422 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
423 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
424 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
425 a given linear address.
427 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
428 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
429 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
431 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
433 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
435 * Changes in documentation.
437 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
438 Documentation License.
440 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
443 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
445 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
448 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
449 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
450 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
452 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
454 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
455 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
456 contents of this file.
460 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
462 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
464 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
466 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
467 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
468 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
469 greater level of detail.
471 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
473 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
474 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
475 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
478 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
480 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
481 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
482 machines ``out of the box''.
484 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
485 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
486 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
487 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
488 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
490 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
491 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
492 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
493 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
494 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
496 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
497 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
500 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
503 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
504 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
505 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
506 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
508 * New native configurations
510 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
511 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
515 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
516 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
517 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
518 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
520 * OBSOLETE configurations
522 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
523 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
525 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
528 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
529 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
530 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
531 be permanently REMOVED.
533 * Gould support removed
535 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
537 * New features for SVR4
539 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
540 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
541 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
543 * Many C++ enhancements
545 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
546 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
548 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
550 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
551 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
552 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
553 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
555 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
556 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
558 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
560 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
561 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
562 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
564 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
565 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
567 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
569 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
570 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
571 include ``set remote P-packet''.
573 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
575 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
576 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
577 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
579 * ``apropos'' command added.
581 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
582 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
583 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
587 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
588 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
589 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
590 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
591 enabled by configuring with:
593 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
595 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
597 * New native configurations
599 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
600 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
601 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
605 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
606 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
607 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
609 * OBSOLETE configurations
611 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
613 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
614 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
615 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
616 be permanently REMOVED.
620 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
621 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
622 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
623 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
624 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
625 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
626 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
631 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
633 * set extension-language
635 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
636 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
637 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
638 set extension-language .c c++
639 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
640 and their associated languages.
642 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
644 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
645 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
646 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
650 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
651 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
653 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
654 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
656 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
657 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
658 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
659 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
660 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
661 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
662 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
663 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
665 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
666 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
667 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
668 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
672 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
673 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
674 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
675 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
676 for xdb and dbx commands.
680 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
681 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
682 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
684 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
685 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
686 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
688 * Debugging across forks
690 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
695 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
696 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
697 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
699 * GDB remote protocol additions
701 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
702 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
703 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
704 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
706 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
707 full 64-bit address. The command
709 set remoteaddresssize 32
711 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
712 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
715 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
716 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
718 maint packet heythere
720 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
721 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
724 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
725 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
726 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
728 * Tracing can collect general expressions
730 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
731 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
732 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
734 * mask-address variable for Mips
736 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
737 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
738 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
740 * Higher serial baud rates
742 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
743 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
744 to achieve all of these rates.)
748 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
749 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
752 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
754 * New native configurations
756 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
757 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
758 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
759 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
760 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
761 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
762 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
766 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
767 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
768 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
769 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
770 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
771 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
772 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
773 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
774 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
775 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
776 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
778 * New debugging protocols
780 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
781 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
782 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
783 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
784 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
785 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
789 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
790 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
795 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
796 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
798 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
800 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
801 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
802 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
804 * Live range splitting
806 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
807 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
808 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
812 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
813 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
817 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
818 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
819 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
824 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
829 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
830 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
831 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
832 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
833 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
834 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
838 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
839 the symbol at the specified address.
843 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
844 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
845 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
846 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
847 file tracepoint.c for more details.
851 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
852 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
853 of most MIPS variants.
857 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
858 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
859 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
863 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
864 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
865 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
866 the possible architectures.
868 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
870 * New native configurations
872 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
873 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
874 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
875 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
876 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
877 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
881 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
882 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
883 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
884 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
885 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
887 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
891 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
892 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
893 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
894 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
895 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
899 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
901 * Windows 95/NT native
903 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
904 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
905 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
906 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
907 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
909 * dont-repeat command
911 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
912 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
913 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
914 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
916 * Send break instead of ^C
918 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
919 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
920 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
922 * Remote protocol timeout
924 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
925 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
926 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
928 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
930 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
931 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
932 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
933 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
934 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
936 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
937 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
938 automatically on hpux10.
940 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
942 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
944 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
946 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
947 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
948 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
949 every character. The default value is 1050.
951 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
953 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
954 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
955 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
956 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
957 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
958 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
960 * Speedups for remote debugging
962 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
963 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
964 and more efficient S-record downloading.
966 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
968 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
969 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
971 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
975 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
976 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
978 * Remote targets use caching
980 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
981 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
982 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
983 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
984 off' turns the the data cache off.
986 * Remote targets may have threads
988 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
989 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
990 gdb/remote.c for details.
994 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
995 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
996 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
997 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
998 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
999 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1000 sequence is something like
1002 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1004 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1008 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1009 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1010 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1011 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1012 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1013 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1014 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1015 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1019 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1020 but does simplify configuration and building.
1024 GDB now supports hpux10.
1026 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1028 * New native configurations
1030 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1031 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1032 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1033 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1037 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1038 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1039 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1040 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1043 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1045 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1046 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1047 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1048 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1049 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1051 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1053 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1054 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1057 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1059 To execute the command use:
1062 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1063 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1064 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1066 * New `if' and `while' commands
1068 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1069 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1070 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1071 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1072 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1073 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1074 if the expression is zero.
1076 * Fortran source language mode
1078 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1079 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1080 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1081 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1084 * Better HPUX support
1086 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1087 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1088 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1089 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1090 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1096 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1097 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1103 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1104 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1107 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1108 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1110 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1112 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1113 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1114 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1115 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1116 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1117 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1119 * New DOS host serial code
1121 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1122 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1125 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1127 * New "complete" command
1129 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1130 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1132 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1134 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1135 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1137 * Breakpoint hit counts
1139 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1140 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1141 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1142 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1143 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1146 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1148 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1149 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1150 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1152 * Shared library breakpoints
1154 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1155 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1157 * Hardware watchpoints
1159 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1160 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1162 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1166 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1167 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1169 * Improved Irix 5 support
1171 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1173 * Improved HPPA support
1175 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1177 * New native configurations
1179 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1180 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1181 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1182 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1186 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1187 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1190 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1192 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1193 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1197 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1198 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1200 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1202 * Irix 5 is now supported
1206 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1207 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1208 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1209 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1210 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1213 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1215 * User visible changes:
1219 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1220 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1221 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1222 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1223 debugging info for the mips target).
1225 * DEC Alpha native support
1227 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1228 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1229 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1230 Alpha-specific notes.
1232 * Preliminary thread implementation
1234 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1236 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1238 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1239 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1242 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1244 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1245 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1246 call methods, ...etc.
1248 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1250 * User visible changes:
1252 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1253 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1254 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1255 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1257 Filename completion now works.
1259 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1260 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1261 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1263 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1264 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1265 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1266 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1267 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1271 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1272 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1275 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1279 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1280 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1281 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1285 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1286 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1287 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1288 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1289 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1293 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1294 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1295 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1297 * New targets supported
1299 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1300 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1301 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1302 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1303 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1305 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1306 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1307 GO32 memory extender.
1309 * New remote protocols
1311 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1313 * New source languages supported
1315 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1316 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1317 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1320 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1322 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1324 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1325 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1326 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1327 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1328 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1329 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1331 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1333 * Faster and better demangling
1335 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1336 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1337 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1338 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1339 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1340 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1343 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1344 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1345 compiler does not actually implement.
1347 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1349 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1350 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1351 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1352 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1353 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1354 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1357 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1358 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1360 * Improved configure script
1362 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1363 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1364 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1365 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1367 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1368 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1369 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1370 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1371 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1372 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1374 * Documentation improvements
1376 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1377 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1378 before submitting changes.
1380 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1381 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1382 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1383 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1384 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1386 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1387 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1388 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1389 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1390 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1391 around this problem.
1395 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1396 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1397 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1400 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1401 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1403 * New native hosts supported
1405 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1406 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1408 * New targets supported
1410 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1412 * New file formats supported
1414 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1415 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1419 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1421 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1422 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1424 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1425 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1426 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1428 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1429 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1431 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1432 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1433 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1436 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1437 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1438 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1439 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1440 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1442 * Internal improvements
1444 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1445 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1447 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1448 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1449 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1450 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1451 shared code that handles any of them.
1453 * New command line options
1455 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1459 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1460 General Public License.
1462 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1464 * Host/native/target split
1466 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1467 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1468 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1469 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1470 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1472 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1473 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1474 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1475 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1476 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1477 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1478 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1480 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1481 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1482 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1484 * New hosts supported
1486 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1487 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1488 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1490 * New targets supported
1492 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1493 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1495 * New native hosts supported
1497 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1498 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1499 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1501 * New file formats supported
1503 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1504 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1505 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1509 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1510 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1511 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1513 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1515 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1516 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1517 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1518 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1522 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1523 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1524 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1526 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1530 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1531 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1534 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1535 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1537 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1538 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1539 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1540 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1541 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1542 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1544 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1545 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1546 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1547 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1551 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1552 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1553 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1554 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1555 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1557 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1558 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1559 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1560 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1564 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1565 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1566 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1567 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1568 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1569 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1570 each instruction being stepped through.
1572 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1573 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1575 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1576 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1577 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1578 processor with a serial port.
1582 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1583 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1584 supported, and what files each one uses.
1588 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1589 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1590 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1591 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1593 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1594 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1595 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1596 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1600 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1601 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1602 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1603 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1604 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1605 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1607 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1610 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1612 * Better support for C++ function names
1614 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1615 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1616 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1617 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1618 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1620 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1621 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1622 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1623 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1624 for the list of formats.
1626 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1628 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1629 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1630 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1631 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1632 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1633 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1636 * New 'maintenance' command
1638 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1639 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1640 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1642 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1643 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1644 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1645 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1646 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1647 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1649 The following commands are new:
1651 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1652 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1653 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1655 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1657 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1658 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1659 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1660 read after argv processing.
1662 * New hosts supported
1664 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1666 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1668 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1669 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1670 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1671 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1672 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1675 * New targets supported
1677 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1679 * More smarts about finding #include files
1681 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1682 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1683 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1684 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1685 the one that contains your sources.
1687 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1688 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1689 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1691 * Interesting infernals change
1693 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1694 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1695 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1696 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1698 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1700 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1701 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1702 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1704 See the ChangeLog for details.
1706 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1708 * New machines supported (host and target)
1710 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1712 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1714 * New malloc package
1716 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1717 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1718 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1719 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1720 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1721 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1725 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1726 'help info proc' for details.
1728 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1730 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1731 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1734 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1736 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1737 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1738 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1739 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1740 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1741 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1743 * Cross byte order fixes
1745 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1746 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1748 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1750 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1751 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1752 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1753 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1754 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1755 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1756 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1757 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1758 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1759 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1761 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1762 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1763 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1764 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1766 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1767 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1768 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1771 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1773 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1774 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1775 shared across multiple host platforms.
1777 * longjmp() handling
1779 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1780 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1781 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1782 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1786 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1787 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1792 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1793 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1794 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1796 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1798 * New machines supported (host and target)
1800 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1802 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1803 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1805 * New machines supported (target)
1807 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1811 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1812 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1813 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1815 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1816 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1817 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1818 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1819 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1822 * New features for SVR4
1824 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1825 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1826 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1828 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1829 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1830 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1832 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1833 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1835 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1837 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1838 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1839 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1840 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1841 same code linked statically.
1845 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1846 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1847 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1848 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1849 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1850 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1854 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1855 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1856 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1859 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1861 * New machines supported (host and target)
1863 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1864 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1865 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1867 * Almost SCO Unix support
1869 We had hoped to support:
1870 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1871 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1872 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1873 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1875 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1877 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1878 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1879 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1880 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1885 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1886 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1887 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1891 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1892 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1893 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1895 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1897 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1898 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1899 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1901 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1902 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1903 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1904 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1907 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1908 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1909 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1910 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1913 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1914 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1917 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1918 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1919 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1922 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1924 * Improved configuration
1926 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1927 Porting BFD is simpler.
1931 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1932 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1933 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1934 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1938 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1940 * New host supported (not target)
1942 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1945 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1947 * Multiple source language support
1949 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1950 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1951 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1952 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1953 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1954 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1958 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1959 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1960 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1961 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1963 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1964 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1965 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1967 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1968 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1972 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1973 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1974 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1975 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1978 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1980 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1981 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1982 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1983 examining core files.
1987 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1990 * New machines supported (host and target)
1992 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1993 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1994 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1996 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1998 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2000 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2002 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2003 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2004 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2006 * New remote interfaces
2012 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2016 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2018 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2019 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2020 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2021 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2022 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2023 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2024 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2025 stub on the target system.
2027 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2029 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2030 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2031 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2033 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2034 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2037 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2039 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2040 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2042 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2043 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2044 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2046 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2047 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2048 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2049 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2051 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2052 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2053 it is already running. Default is ON.
2055 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2056 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2057 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2058 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2061 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2062 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2063 or the value of the environment variable
2066 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2067 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2070 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2071 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2072 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2074 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2075 history expansion will be performed on
2076 command line input. The default is OFF.
2078 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2079 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2080 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2082 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2083 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2084 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2087 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2088 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2089 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2092 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2093 ``set width'' instead.
2095 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2096 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2097 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2098 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2100 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2103 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2106 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2109 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2112 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2114 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2115 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2116 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2120 * Support for Shared Libraries
2122 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2123 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2124 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2125 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2126 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2127 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2128 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2129 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2131 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2132 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2133 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2135 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2140 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2141 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2142 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2143 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2144 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2145 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2147 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2149 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2151 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2152 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2153 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2156 * C++ multiple inheritance
2158 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2161 * C++ exception handling
2163 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2164 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2165 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2168 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2169 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2170 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2172 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2173 current stack frame.
2176 * Minor command changes
2178 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2179 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2180 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2182 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2183 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2184 frames without printing.
2186 * New directory command
2188 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2189 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2190 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2191 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2192 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2194 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2196 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2199 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2200 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2201 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2202 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob