1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
8 * New native configurations
10 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
15 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
17 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
18 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
19 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
20 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
21 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
23 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
24 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
25 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
26 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
27 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
28 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
29 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
30 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
32 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
33 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
35 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
40 * REMOVED configurations
42 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
45 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
50 * All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
52 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
56 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
58 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
60 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
62 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
63 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
64 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
65 greater level of detail.
67 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
69 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
70 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
71 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
74 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
76 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
77 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
78 machines ``out of the box''.
80 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
81 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
82 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
83 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
84 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
86 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
87 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
88 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
89 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
90 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
92 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
93 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
96 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
99 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
100 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
101 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
102 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
104 * New native configurations
106 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
107 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
111 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
112 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
113 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
114 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
116 * OBSOLETE configurations
118 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
119 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
121 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
124 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
125 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
126 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
127 be permanently REMOVED.
129 * Gould support removed
131 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
133 * New features for SVR4
135 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
136 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
137 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
139 * Many C++ enhancements
141 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
142 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
144 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
146 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
147 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
148 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
149 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
151 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
152 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
154 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
156 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
157 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
158 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
160 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
161 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
163 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
165 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
166 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
167 include ``set remote P-packet''.
169 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
171 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
172 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
173 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
175 * ``apropos'' command added.
177 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
178 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
179 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
183 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
184 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
185 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
186 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
187 enabled by configuring with:
189 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
191 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
193 * New native configurations
195 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
196 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
197 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
201 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
202 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
203 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
205 * OBSOLETE configurations
207 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
209 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
210 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
211 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
212 be permanently REMOVED.
216 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
217 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
218 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
219 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
220 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
221 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
222 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
227 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
229 * set extension-language
231 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
232 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
233 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
234 set extension-language .c c++
235 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
236 and their associated languages.
238 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
240 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
241 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
242 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
246 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
247 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
249 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
250 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
252 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
253 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
254 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
255 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
256 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
257 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
258 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
259 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
261 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
262 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
263 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
264 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
268 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
269 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
270 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
271 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
272 for xdb and dbx commands.
276 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
277 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
278 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
280 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
281 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
282 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
284 * Debugging across forks
286 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
291 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
292 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
293 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
295 * GDB remote protocol additions
297 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
298 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
299 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
300 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
302 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
303 full 64-bit address. The command
305 set remoteaddresssize 32
307 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
308 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
311 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
312 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
314 maint packet heythere
316 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
317 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
320 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
321 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
322 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
324 * Tracing can collect general expressions
326 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
327 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
328 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
330 * mask-address variable for Mips
332 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
333 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
334 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
336 * Higher serial baud rates
338 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
339 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
340 to achieve all of these rates.)
344 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
345 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
348 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
350 * New native configurations
352 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
353 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
354 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
355 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
356 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
357 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
358 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
362 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
363 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
364 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
365 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
366 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
367 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
368 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
369 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
370 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
371 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
372 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
374 * New debugging protocols
376 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
377 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
378 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
379 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
380 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
381 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
385 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
386 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
391 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
392 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
394 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
396 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
397 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
398 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
400 * Live range splitting
402 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
403 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
404 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
408 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
409 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
413 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
414 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
415 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
420 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
425 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
426 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
427 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
428 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
429 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
430 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
434 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
435 the symbol at the specified address.
439 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
440 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
441 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
442 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
443 file tracepoint.c for more details.
447 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
448 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
449 of most MIPS variants.
453 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
454 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
455 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
459 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
460 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
461 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
462 the possible architectures.
464 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
466 * New native configurations
468 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
469 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
470 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
471 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
472 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
473 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
477 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
478 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
479 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
480 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
481 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
483 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
487 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
488 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
489 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
490 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
491 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
495 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
497 * Windows 95/NT native
499 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
500 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
501 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
502 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
503 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
505 * dont-repeat command
507 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
508 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
509 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
510 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
512 * Send break instead of ^C
514 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
515 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
516 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
518 * Remote protocol timeout
520 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
521 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
522 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
524 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
526 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
527 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
528 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
529 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
530 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
532 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
533 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
534 automatically on hpux10.
536 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
538 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
540 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
542 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
543 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
544 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
545 every character. The default value is 1050.
547 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
549 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
550 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
551 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
552 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
553 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
554 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
556 * Speedups for remote debugging
558 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
559 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
560 and more efficient S-record downloading.
562 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
564 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
565 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
567 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
571 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
572 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
574 * Remote targets use caching
576 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
577 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
578 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
579 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
580 off' turns the the data cache off.
582 * Remote targets may have threads
584 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
585 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
586 gdb/remote.c for details.
590 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
591 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
592 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
593 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
594 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
595 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
596 sequence is something like
598 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
600 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
604 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
605 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
606 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
607 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
608 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
609 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
610 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
611 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
615 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
616 but does simplify configuration and building.
620 GDB now supports hpux10.
622 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
624 * New native configurations
626 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
627 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
628 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
629 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
633 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
634 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
635 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
636 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
639 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
641 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
642 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
643 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
644 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
645 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
647 * Arguments to user-defined commands
649 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
650 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
653 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
655 To execute the command use:
658 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
659 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
660 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
662 * New `if' and `while' commands
664 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
665 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
666 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
667 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
668 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
669 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
670 if the expression is zero.
672 * Fortran source language mode
674 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
675 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
676 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
677 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
680 * Better HPUX support
682 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
683 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
684 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
685 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
686 that behavior do the following before running the program:
692 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
693 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
699 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
700 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
703 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
704 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
706 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
708 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
709 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
710 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
711 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
712 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
713 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
715 * New DOS host serial code
717 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
718 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
721 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
723 * New "complete" command
725 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
726 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
728 * Trailing space optional in prompt
730 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
731 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
733 * Breakpoint hit counts
735 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
736 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
737 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
738 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
739 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
742 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
744 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
745 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
746 arrays actually contain only short strings.
748 * Shared library breakpoints
750 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
751 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
753 * Hardware watchpoints
755 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
756 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
758 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
762 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
763 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
765 * Improved Irix 5 support
767 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
769 * Improved HPPA support
771 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
773 * New native configurations
775 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
776 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
777 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
778 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
782 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
783 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
786 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
788 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
789 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
793 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
794 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
796 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
798 * Irix 5 is now supported
802 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
803 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
804 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
805 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
806 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
809 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
811 * User visible changes:
815 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
816 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
817 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
818 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
819 debugging info for the mips target).
821 * DEC Alpha native support
823 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
824 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
825 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
826 Alpha-specific notes.
828 * Preliminary thread implementation
830 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
832 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
834 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
835 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
838 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
840 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
841 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
842 call methods, ...etc.
844 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
846 * User visible changes:
848 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
849 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
850 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
851 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
853 Filename completion now works.
855 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
856 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
857 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
859 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
860 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
861 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
862 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
863 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
867 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
868 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
871 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
875 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
876 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
877 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
881 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
882 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
883 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
884 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
885 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
889 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
890 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
891 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
893 * New targets supported
895 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
896 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
897 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
898 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
899 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
901 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
902 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
903 GO32 memory extender.
905 * New remote protocols
907 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
909 * New source languages supported
911 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
912 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
913 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
916 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
918 * HP Precision Architecture supported
920 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
921 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
922 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
923 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
924 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
925 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
927 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
929 * Faster and better demangling
931 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
932 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
933 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
934 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
935 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
936 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
939 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
940 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
941 compiler does not actually implement.
943 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
945 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
946 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
947 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
948 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
949 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
950 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
953 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
954 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
956 * Improved configure script
958 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
959 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
960 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
961 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
963 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
964 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
965 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
966 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
967 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
968 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
970 * Documentation improvements
972 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
973 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
974 before submitting changes.
976 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
977 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
978 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
979 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
980 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
982 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
983 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
984 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
985 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
986 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
991 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
992 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
993 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
996 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
997 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
999 * New native hosts supported
1001 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1002 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1004 * New targets supported
1006 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1008 * New file formats supported
1010 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1011 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1015 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1017 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1018 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1020 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1021 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1022 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1024 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1025 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1027 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1028 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1029 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1032 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1033 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1034 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1035 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1036 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1038 * Internal improvements
1040 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1041 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1043 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1044 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1045 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1046 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1047 shared code that handles any of them.
1049 * New command line options
1051 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1055 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1056 General Public License.
1058 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1060 * Host/native/target split
1062 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1063 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1064 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1065 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1066 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1068 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1069 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1070 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1071 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1072 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1073 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1074 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1076 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1077 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1078 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1080 * New hosts supported
1082 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1083 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1084 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1086 * New targets supported
1088 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1089 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1091 * New native hosts supported
1093 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1094 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1095 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1097 * New file formats supported
1099 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1100 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1101 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1105 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1106 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1107 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1109 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1111 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1112 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1113 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1114 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1118 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1119 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1120 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1122 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1126 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1127 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1130 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1131 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1133 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1134 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1135 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1136 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1137 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1138 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1140 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1141 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1142 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1143 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1147 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1148 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1149 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1150 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1151 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1153 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1154 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1155 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1156 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1160 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1161 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1162 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1163 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1164 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1165 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1166 each instruction being stepped through.
1168 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1169 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1171 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1172 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1173 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1174 processor with a serial port.
1178 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1179 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1180 supported, and what files each one uses.
1184 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1185 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1186 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1187 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1189 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1190 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1191 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1192 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1196 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1197 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1198 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1199 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1200 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1201 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1203 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1206 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1208 * Better support for C++ function names
1210 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1211 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1212 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1213 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1214 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1216 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1217 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1218 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1219 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1220 for the list of formats.
1222 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1224 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1225 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1226 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1227 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1228 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1229 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1232 * New 'maintenance' command
1234 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1235 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1236 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1238 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1239 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1240 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1241 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1242 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1243 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1245 The following commands are new:
1247 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1248 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1249 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1251 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1253 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1254 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1255 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1256 read after argv processing.
1258 * New hosts supported
1260 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1262 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1264 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1265 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1266 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1267 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1268 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1271 * New targets supported
1273 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1275 * More smarts about finding #include files
1277 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1278 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1279 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1280 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1281 the one that contains your sources.
1283 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1284 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1285 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1287 * Interesting infernals change
1289 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1290 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1291 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1292 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1294 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1296 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1297 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1298 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1300 See the ChangeLog for details.
1302 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1304 * New machines supported (host and target)
1306 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1308 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1310 * New malloc package
1312 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1313 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1314 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1315 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1316 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1317 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1321 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1322 'help info proc' for details.
1324 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1326 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1327 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1330 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1332 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1333 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1334 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1335 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1336 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1337 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1339 * Cross byte order fixes
1341 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1342 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1344 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1346 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1347 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1348 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1349 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1350 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1351 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1352 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1353 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1354 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1355 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1357 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1358 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1359 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1360 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1362 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1363 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1364 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1367 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1369 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1370 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1371 shared across multiple host platforms.
1373 * longjmp() handling
1375 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1376 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1377 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1378 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1382 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1383 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1388 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1389 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1390 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1392 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1394 * New machines supported (host and target)
1396 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1398 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1399 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1401 * New machines supported (target)
1403 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1407 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1408 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1409 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1411 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1412 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1413 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1414 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1415 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1418 * New features for SVR4
1420 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1421 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1422 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1424 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1425 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1426 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1428 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1429 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1431 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1433 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1434 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1435 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1436 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1437 same code linked statically.
1441 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1442 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1443 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1444 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1445 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1446 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1450 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1451 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1452 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1455 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1457 * New machines supported (host and target)
1459 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1460 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1461 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1463 * Almost SCO Unix support
1465 We had hoped to support:
1466 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1467 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1468 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1469 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1471 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1473 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1474 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1475 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1476 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1481 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1482 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1483 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1487 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1488 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1489 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1491 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1493 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1494 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1495 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1497 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1498 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1499 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1500 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1503 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1504 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1505 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1506 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1509 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1510 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1513 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1514 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1515 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1518 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1520 * Improved configuration
1522 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1523 Porting BFD is simpler.
1527 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1528 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1529 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1530 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1534 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1536 * New host supported (not target)
1538 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1541 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1543 * Multiple source language support
1545 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1546 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1547 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1548 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1549 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1550 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1554 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1555 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1556 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1557 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1559 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1560 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1561 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1563 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1564 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1568 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1569 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1570 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1571 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1574 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1576 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1577 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1578 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1579 examining core files.
1583 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1586 * New machines supported (host and target)
1588 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1589 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1590 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1592 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1594 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1596 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1598 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1599 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1600 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1602 * New remote interfaces
1608 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1612 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1614 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1615 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1616 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1617 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1618 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1619 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1620 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1621 stub on the target system.
1623 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1625 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1626 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1627 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1629 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1630 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1633 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1635 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1636 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1638 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1639 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1640 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1642 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1643 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1644 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1645 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1647 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1648 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1649 it is already running. Default is ON.
1651 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1652 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1653 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1654 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1657 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1658 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1659 or the value of the environment variable
1662 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1663 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1666 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1667 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1668 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1670 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1671 history expansion will be performed on
1672 command line input. The default is OFF.
1674 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1675 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1676 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1678 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1679 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1680 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1683 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1684 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1685 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1688 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1689 ``set width'' instead.
1691 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1692 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1693 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1694 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1696 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1699 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1702 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1705 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1708 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1710 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1711 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1712 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1716 * Support for Shared Libraries
1718 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1719 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1720 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1721 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1722 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1723 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1724 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1725 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1727 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1728 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1729 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1731 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1736 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1737 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1738 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1739 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1740 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1741 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1743 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1745 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1747 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1748 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1749 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1752 * C++ multiple inheritance
1754 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1757 * C++ exception handling
1759 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1760 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1761 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1764 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1765 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1766 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1768 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1769 current stack frame.
1772 * Minor command changes
1774 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1775 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1776 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1778 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1779 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1780 frames without printing.
1782 * New directory command
1784 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1785 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1786 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1787 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1788 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1790 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1792 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1795 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1796 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1797 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1798 where the program that you are debugging will run.