1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
7 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
8 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
9 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
11 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
12 now complete on file names.
14 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
15 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
16 For instance, consider:
18 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
19 # struct example variable;
22 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
23 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
25 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
26 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
32 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
35 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
36 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
37 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
39 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
41 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
42 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
43 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
45 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
48 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
49 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
51 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
52 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
53 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
55 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
56 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
58 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
60 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
62 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
63 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
65 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
66 list of section offsets.
68 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
69 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
72 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
73 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
74 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
76 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
78 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
79 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
81 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
82 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
83 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
85 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
86 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
90 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
91 available is determined at configure time.
95 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
99 Print the list of Ada tasks.
101 Print detailed information about task number N.
103 Print the task number of the current task.
105 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
109 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
111 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
113 maint set python print-stack
114 maint show python print-stack
115 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
118 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
120 set print symbol-loading
121 show print symbol-loading
122 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
126 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
131 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
133 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
134 show multiple-symbols
135 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
136 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
137 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
139 set breakpoint always-inserted
140 show breakpoint always-inserted
141 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
142 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
143 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
145 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
146 show arm fallback-mode
147 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
149 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
150 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
151 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
152 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
154 set disable-randomization
155 show disable-randomization
156 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
157 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
158 multiple debugging sessions.
161 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
162 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
163 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
164 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
169 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
174 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
176 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
178 * New native configurations
180 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
181 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
185 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
186 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
188 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
190 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
191 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
192 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
193 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
195 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
196 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
198 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
201 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
202 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
203 and in inlined functions.
205 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
206 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
207 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
209 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
211 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
212 registers on PowerPC targets.
214 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
215 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
217 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
218 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
220 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
221 extended-remote mode.
223 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
224 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
225 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
226 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
228 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
229 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
230 target architectures.
232 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
233 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
234 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
235 stored in two consecutive float registers.
237 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
240 * Improved support for debugging Ada
241 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
243 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
244 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
245 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
246 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
248 - Improved command completion in Ada
251 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
256 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
257 show print frame-arguments
258 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
259 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
264 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
271 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
280 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
283 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
287 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
289 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
291 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
292 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
293 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
295 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
296 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
297 -Bsymbolic linker option.
299 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
300 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
303 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
304 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
306 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
307 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
309 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
311 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
312 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
313 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
315 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
316 automatically displayed as character or string data.
318 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
319 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
322 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
323 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
324 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
326 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
329 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
330 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
331 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
333 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
335 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
337 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
338 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
339 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
341 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
342 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
344 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
345 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
346 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
347 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
348 Windows and SymbianOS).
350 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
351 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
353 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
354 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
360 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
361 when debugging using remote targets.
363 set mem inaccessible-by-default
364 show mem inaccessible-by-default
365 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
366 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
367 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
368 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
369 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
371 set breakpoint auto-hw
372 show breakpoint auto-hw
373 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
374 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
375 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
376 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
377 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
378 including "next" and "finish".
381 catch exception unhandled
382 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
385 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
389 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
390 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
391 an alias to "set sysroot".
394 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
395 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
398 * New native configurations
400 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
405 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
406 not query the target for its built-in description.
410 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
411 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
412 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
417 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
418 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
421 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
426 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
427 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
429 qXfer:libraries:read:
430 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
431 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
432 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
433 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
437 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
446 i[34567]86-*-netware*
447 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
448 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
450 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
453 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
454 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
463 * Other removed features
470 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
477 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
482 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
483 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
488 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
489 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
491 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
493 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
494 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
495 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
496 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
500 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
501 in debugging information.
505 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
506 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
508 set mips stack-arg-size
509 set mips saved-gpreg-size
511 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
513 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
518 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
520 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
521 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
522 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
524 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
525 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
528 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
529 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
531 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
532 stub provides the required support.
534 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
535 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
540 unset substitute-path
542 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
543 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
544 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
545 between compilation and debugging.
549 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
550 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
551 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
555 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
557 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
558 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
560 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
565 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
566 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
567 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
568 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
572 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
573 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
575 qXfer:memory-map:read:
576 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
577 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
582 Erase and program a flash memory device.
584 * Removed remote packets
587 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
588 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
590 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
594 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
596 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
600 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
601 only if it doesn't already have a value.
603 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
605 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
607 restart <n> Return the program state to a
608 previously saved state.
610 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
612 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
614 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
615 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
617 info forks List forks of the user program that
618 are available to be debugged.
620 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
621 forks of the user program that are
622 available to be debugged.
624 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
625 that are available to be debugged (and
626 kill the forked process).
628 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
629 that are available to be debugged (and
630 allow the process to continue).
634 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
636 * Improved Windows host support
638 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
639 native console support, and remote communications using either
640 network sockets or serial ports.
642 * Improved Modula-2 language support
644 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
645 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
646 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
647 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
648 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
649 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
653 The ARM rdi-share module.
655 The Netware NLM debug server.
657 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
659 * New native configurations
661 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
662 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
666 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
668 * New command line options
670 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
671 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
672 the child (debugged) program exited with.
673 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
674 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
675 specified multiple times and in conjunction
676 with the --command (-x) option.
678 * Deprecated commands removed
680 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
684 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
685 othernames set arm disassembler
686 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
687 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
688 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
691 * New BSD user-level threads support
693 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
694 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
697 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
698 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
699 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
701 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
702 are not yet supported.
704 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
705 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
707 * REMOVED configurations and files
709 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
710 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
711 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
713 * New "set print array-indexes" command
715 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
716 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
719 * VAX floating point support
721 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
723 * User-defined command support
725 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
726 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
727 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
729 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
731 * New command line option
733 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
736 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
738 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
739 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
740 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
741 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
742 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
744 * Internationalization
746 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
747 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
748 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
752 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
753 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
754 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
756 * New native configurations
758 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
762 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
763 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
765 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
767 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
768 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
769 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
772 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
773 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
774 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
786 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
787 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
789 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
791 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
792 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
793 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
803 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
805 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
807 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
808 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
811 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
813 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
814 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
815 IRIX long double values).
819 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
820 command. This problem has been fixed.
822 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
824 * Fix for ``many threads''
826 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
827 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
830 ptrace: No such process.
831 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
833 This problem has been fixed.
835 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
837 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
840 * New ``start'' command.
842 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
844 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
846 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
847 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
848 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
850 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
851 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
852 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
853 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
854 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
855 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
856 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
857 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
858 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
860 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
862 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
863 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
864 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
865 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
866 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
868 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
869 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
870 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
872 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
874 * New native configurations
876 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
877 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
878 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
879 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
880 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
881 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
882 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
884 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
886 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
887 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
888 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
889 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
890 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
891 work, was also included.
893 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
894 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
904 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
905 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
907 * REMOVED configurations and files
909 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
910 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
911 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
912 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
913 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
914 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
915 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
916 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
917 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
919 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
921 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
923 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
925 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
926 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
927 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
928 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
931 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
933 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
934 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
935 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
936 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
937 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
938 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
941 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
943 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
945 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
946 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
947 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
949 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
951 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
952 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
954 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
956 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
957 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
958 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
960 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
962 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
963 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
965 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
967 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
968 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
969 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
971 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
973 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
974 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
975 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
977 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
979 * Removed --with-mmalloc
981 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
982 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
984 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
986 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
987 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
988 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
989 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
991 * Revised SPARC target
993 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
994 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
995 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
996 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
997 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1001 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1002 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1003 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1006 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1008 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1009 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1012 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1014 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1015 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1016 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1017 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1018 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1019 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1020 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1021 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1022 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1024 * New native configurations
1026 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1027 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1028 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1029 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1030 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1032 * New debugging protocols
1034 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1036 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1038 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1039 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1040 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1042 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1044 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1045 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1046 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1047 permanently REMOVED.
1049 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1050 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1051 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1052 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1053 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1054 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1055 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1056 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1057 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1058 sonymips mips-sony-*
1059 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1061 * REMOVED configurations and files
1063 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1064 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1065 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1066 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1067 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1068 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1069 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1070 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1071 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1072 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1073 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1074 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1075 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1076 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1077 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1078 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1079 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1081 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1085 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1086 integrated into GDB.
1088 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1090 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1091 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1092 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1095 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1096 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1097 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1101 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1102 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1103 remote protocol documentation for details.
1105 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1107 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1108 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1109 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1112 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1114 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1115 per-thread variables.
1117 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1119 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1120 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1122 * Separate debug info.
1124 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1125 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1126 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1127 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1128 and optional debug files.
1130 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1132 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1133 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1136 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1137 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1141 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1142 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1143 considered "useable".
1145 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1147 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1148 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1151 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1153 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1154 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1156 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1158 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1159 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1162 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1164 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1165 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1169 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1170 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1171 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1172 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1173 data, for more informative profiling results.
1175 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1177 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1178 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1179 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1181 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1184 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1185 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1186 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1187 in a subsequent -var-update.
1189 * New native configurations.
1191 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1193 * Multi-arched targets.
1195 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1196 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1198 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1200 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1201 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1202 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1203 permanently REMOVED.
1205 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1206 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1207 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1208 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1209 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1210 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1211 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1212 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1213 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1214 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1215 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1216 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1218 * REMOVED configurations and files
1221 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1222 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1223 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1224 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1225 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1226 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1228 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1229 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1230 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1231 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1232 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1233 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1235 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1237 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1238 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1239 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1240 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1241 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1243 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1245 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1247 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1248 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1249 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1250 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1251 shared libs like mad''.
1253 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1255 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1256 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1257 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1258 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1260 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1262 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1263 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1266 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1267 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1269 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1270 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1272 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1273 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1274 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1275 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1277 * Multi-arched targets.
1279 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1280 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1282 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1283 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1284 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1288 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1291 * New native configurations
1293 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1294 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1295 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1296 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1298 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1300 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1301 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1302 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1303 permanently REMOVED.
1305 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1306 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1307 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1308 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1309 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1310 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1311 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1312 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1313 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1314 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1316 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1317 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1319 * OBSOLETE languages
1321 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1323 * REMOVED configurations and files
1325 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1326 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1327 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1328 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1329 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1331 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1333 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1335 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1336 commands. The default is 1024.
1338 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1340 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1342 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1344 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1345 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1346 from a file into memory (restore).
1348 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1350 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1351 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1352 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1354 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1362 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1363 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1364 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1366 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1367 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1368 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1370 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1371 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1372 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1374 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1375 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1376 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1378 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1380 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1382 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1383 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1384 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1385 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1386 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1387 (notably embedded) targets.
1389 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1391 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1392 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1393 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1394 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1396 * New command line option
1398 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1400 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1402 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1403 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1404 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1405 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1406 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1407 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1408 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1409 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1410 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1411 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1413 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1415 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1416 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1418 * New native configurations
1420 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1421 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1422 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1423 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1427 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1429 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1431 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1432 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1433 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1434 permanently REMOVED.
1436 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1437 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1438 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1439 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1440 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1442 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1444 * REMOVED configurations and files
1446 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1448 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1449 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1450 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1451 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1452 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1453 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1454 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1455 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1456 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1457 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1458 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1460 * Changes to command line processing
1462 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1463 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1465 * Changes to key bindings
1467 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1469 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1471 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1473 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1476 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1478 Numerous documentation fixes.
1480 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1482 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1484 * New native configurations
1486 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1487 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1488 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1489 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1490 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1491 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1495 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1497 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1499 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1501 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1502 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1503 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1504 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1505 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1507 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1508 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1509 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1510 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1511 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1512 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1513 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1514 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1516 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1517 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1519 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1520 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1521 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1522 permanently REMOVED.
1524 * REMOVED configurations and files
1526 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1527 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1529 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1533 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1535 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1536 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1541 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1543 * The MI enabled by default.
1545 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1546 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1547 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1548 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1549 which is now deprecated.
1551 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1553 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1554 main features are supported:
1556 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1558 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1561 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1563 - a Pascal expression parser.
1565 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1567 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1569 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1571 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1572 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1574 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1576 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1578 * Changes in completion.
1580 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1581 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1582 users expect at the shell prompt.
1584 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1585 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1586 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1587 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1588 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1589 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1590 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1592 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1594 * New platform-independent commands:
1596 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1597 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1598 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1600 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1602 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1603 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1604 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1606 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1608 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1609 multi-threaded programs though.
1611 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1613 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1615 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1616 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1619 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1621 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1622 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1623 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1624 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1625 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1628 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1629 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1630 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1632 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1634 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1635 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1637 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1638 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1641 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1642 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1643 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1644 a given linear address.
1646 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1647 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1648 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1650 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1652 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1654 * Changes in documentation.
1656 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1657 Documentation License.
1659 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1662 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1664 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1667 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1668 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1669 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1671 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1673 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1674 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1675 contents of this file.
1679 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1681 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1683 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1685 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1686 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1687 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1688 greater level of detail.
1690 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1692 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1693 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1694 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1697 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1699 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1700 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1701 machines ``out of the box''.
1703 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1704 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1705 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1706 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1707 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1709 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1710 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1711 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1712 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1713 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1715 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1716 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1719 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1722 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1723 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1724 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1725 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1727 * New native configurations
1729 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1730 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1734 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1735 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1736 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1737 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1739 * OBSOLETE configurations
1741 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1742 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1744 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1747 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1748 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1749 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1750 be permanently REMOVED.
1752 * Gould support removed
1754 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1756 * New features for SVR4
1758 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1759 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1760 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1762 * Many C++ enhancements
1764 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1765 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1767 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1769 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1770 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1771 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1772 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1774 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1775 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1777 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1779 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1780 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1781 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1783 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1784 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1786 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1788 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1789 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1790 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1792 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1794 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1795 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1796 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1798 * ``apropos'' command added.
1800 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1801 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1802 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1806 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1807 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1808 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1809 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1810 enabled by configuring with:
1812 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1814 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1816 * New native configurations
1818 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1819 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1820 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1824 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1825 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1826 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1828 * OBSOLETE configurations
1830 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1832 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1833 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1834 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1835 be permanently REMOVED.
1839 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1840 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1841 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1842 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1843 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1844 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1845 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1850 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1852 * set extension-language
1854 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1855 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1856 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1857 set extension-language .c c++
1858 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1859 and their associated languages.
1861 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1863 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1864 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1865 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1869 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1870 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1872 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1873 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1875 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1876 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1877 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1878 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1879 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1880 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1881 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1882 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1884 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1885 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1886 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1887 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1891 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1892 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1893 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1894 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1895 for xdb and dbx commands.
1899 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1900 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1901 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1903 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1904 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1905 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1907 * Debugging across forks
1909 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1914 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1915 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1916 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1918 * GDB remote protocol additions
1920 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1921 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1922 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1923 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1925 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1926 full 64-bit address. The command
1928 set remoteaddresssize 32
1930 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1931 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1934 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1935 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1937 maint packet heythere
1939 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1940 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1943 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1944 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1945 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1947 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1949 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1950 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1951 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1953 * mask-address variable for Mips
1955 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1956 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1957 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1959 * Higher serial baud rates
1961 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1962 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1963 to achieve all of these rates.)
1967 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1968 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1971 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1973 * New native configurations
1975 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1976 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1977 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1978 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1979 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1980 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1981 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1985 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1986 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1987 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1988 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1989 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1990 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1991 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1992 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1993 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1994 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1995 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1997 * New debugging protocols
1999 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2000 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2001 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2002 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2003 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2004 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2008 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2009 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2014 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2015 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2017 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2019 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2020 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2021 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2023 * Live range splitting
2025 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2026 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2027 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2031 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2032 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2036 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2037 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2038 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2043 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2048 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2049 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2050 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2051 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2052 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2053 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2057 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2058 the symbol at the specified address.
2062 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2063 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2064 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2065 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2066 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2070 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2071 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2072 of most MIPS variants.
2076 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2077 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2078 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2082 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2083 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2084 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2085 the possible architectures.
2087 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2089 * New native configurations
2091 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2092 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2093 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2094 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2095 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2096 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2100 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2101 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2102 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2103 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2104 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2106 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2110 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2111 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2112 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2113 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2114 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2118 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2120 * Windows 95/NT native
2122 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2123 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2124 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2125 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2126 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2128 * dont-repeat command
2130 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2131 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2132 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2133 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2135 * Send break instead of ^C
2137 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2138 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2139 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2141 * Remote protocol timeout
2143 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2144 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2145 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2147 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2149 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2150 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2151 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2152 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2153 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2155 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2156 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2157 automatically on hpux10.
2159 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2161 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2163 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2165 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2166 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2167 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2168 every character. The default value is 1050.
2170 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2172 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2173 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2174 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2175 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2176 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2177 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2179 * Speedups for remote debugging
2181 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2182 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2183 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2185 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2187 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2188 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2190 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2192 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2194 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2195 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2197 * Remote targets use caching
2199 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2200 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2201 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2202 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2203 off' turns the the data cache off.
2205 * Remote targets may have threads
2207 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2208 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2209 gdb/remote.c for details.
2213 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2214 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2215 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2216 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2217 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2218 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2219 sequence is something like
2221 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2223 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2227 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2228 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2229 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2230 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2231 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2232 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2233 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2234 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2238 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2239 but does simplify configuration and building.
2243 GDB now supports hpux10.
2245 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2247 * New native configurations
2249 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2250 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2251 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2252 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2256 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2257 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2258 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2259 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2262 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2264 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2265 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2266 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2267 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2268 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2270 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2272 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2273 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2276 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2278 To execute the command use:
2281 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2282 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2283 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2285 * New `if' and `while' commands
2287 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2288 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2289 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2290 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2291 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2292 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2293 if the expression is zero.
2295 * Fortran source language mode
2297 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2298 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2299 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2300 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2303 * Better HPUX support
2305 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2306 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2307 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2308 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2309 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2315 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2316 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2322 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2323 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2326 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2327 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2329 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2331 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2332 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2333 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2334 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2335 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2336 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2338 * New DOS host serial code
2340 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2341 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2344 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2346 * New "complete" command
2348 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2349 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2351 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2353 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2354 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2356 * Breakpoint hit counts
2358 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2359 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2360 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2361 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2362 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2365 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2367 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2368 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2369 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2371 * Shared library breakpoints
2373 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2374 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2376 * Hardware watchpoints
2378 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2379 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2381 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2385 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2386 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2388 * Improved Irix 5 support
2390 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2392 * Improved HPPA support
2394 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2396 * New native configurations
2398 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2399 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2400 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2401 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2405 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2406 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2409 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2411 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2412 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2416 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2417 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2419 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2421 * Irix 5 is now supported
2425 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2426 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2427 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2428 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2429 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2432 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2434 * User visible changes:
2438 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2439 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2440 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2441 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2442 debugging info for the mips target).
2444 * DEC Alpha native support
2446 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2447 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2448 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2449 Alpha-specific notes.
2451 * Preliminary thread implementation
2453 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2455 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2457 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2458 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2461 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2463 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2464 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2465 call methods, ...etc.
2467 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2469 * User visible changes:
2471 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2472 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2473 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2474 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2476 Filename completion now works.
2478 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2479 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2480 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2482 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2483 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2484 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2485 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2486 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2490 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2491 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2494 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2498 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2499 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2500 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2504 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2505 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2506 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2507 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2508 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2512 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2513 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2514 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2516 * New targets supported
2518 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2519 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2520 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2521 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2522 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2524 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2525 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2526 GO32 memory extender.
2528 * New remote protocols
2530 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2532 * New source languages supported
2534 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2535 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2536 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2539 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2541 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2543 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2544 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2545 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2546 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2547 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2548 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2550 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2552 * Faster and better demangling
2554 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2555 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2556 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2557 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2558 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2559 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2562 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2563 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2564 compiler does not actually implement.
2566 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2568 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2569 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2570 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2571 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2572 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2573 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2576 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2577 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2579 * Improved configure script
2581 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2582 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2583 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2584 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2586 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2587 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2588 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2589 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2590 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2591 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2593 * Documentation improvements
2595 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2596 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2597 before submitting changes.
2599 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2600 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2601 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2602 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2603 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2605 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2606 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2607 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2608 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2609 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2610 around this problem.
2614 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2615 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2616 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2619 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2620 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2622 * New native hosts supported
2624 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2625 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2627 * New targets supported
2629 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2631 * New file formats supported
2633 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2634 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2638 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2640 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2641 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2643 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2644 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2645 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2647 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2648 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2650 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2651 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2652 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2655 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2656 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2657 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2658 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2659 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2661 * Internal improvements
2663 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2664 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2666 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2667 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2668 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2669 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2670 shared code that handles any of them.
2672 * New command line options
2674 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2678 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2679 General Public License.
2681 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2683 * Host/native/target split
2685 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2686 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2687 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2688 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2689 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2691 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2692 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2693 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2694 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2695 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2696 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2697 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2699 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2700 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2701 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2703 * New hosts supported
2705 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2706 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2707 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2709 * New targets supported
2711 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2712 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2714 * New native hosts supported
2716 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2717 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2718 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2720 * New file formats supported
2722 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2723 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2724 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2728 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2729 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2730 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2732 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2734 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2735 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2736 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2737 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2741 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2742 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2743 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2745 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2749 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2750 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2753 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2754 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2756 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2757 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2758 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2759 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2760 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2761 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2763 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2764 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2765 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2766 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2770 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2771 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2772 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2773 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2774 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2776 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2777 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2778 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2779 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2783 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2784 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2785 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2786 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2787 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2788 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2789 each instruction being stepped through.
2791 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2792 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2794 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2795 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2796 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2797 processor with a serial port.
2801 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2802 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2803 supported, and what files each one uses.
2807 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2808 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2809 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2810 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2812 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2813 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2814 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2815 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2819 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2820 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2821 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2822 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2823 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2824 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2826 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2829 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2831 * Better support for C++ function names
2833 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2834 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2835 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2836 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2837 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2839 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2840 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2841 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2842 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2843 for the list of formats.
2845 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2847 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2848 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2849 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2850 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2851 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2852 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2855 * New 'maintenance' command
2857 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2858 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2859 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2861 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2862 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2863 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2864 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2865 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2866 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2868 The following commands are new:
2870 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2871 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2872 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2874 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2876 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2877 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2878 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2879 read after argv processing.
2881 * New hosts supported
2883 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2885 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2887 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2888 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2889 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2890 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2891 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2894 * New targets supported
2896 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2898 * More smarts about finding #include files
2900 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2901 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2902 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2903 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2904 the one that contains your sources.
2906 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2907 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2908 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2910 * Interesting infernals change
2912 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2913 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2914 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2915 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2917 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2919 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2920 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2921 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2923 See the ChangeLog for details.
2925 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2927 * New machines supported (host and target)
2929 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2931 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2933 * New malloc package
2935 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2936 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2937 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2938 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2939 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2940 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2944 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2945 'help info proc' for details.
2947 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2949 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2950 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2953 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2955 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2956 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2957 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2958 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2959 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2960 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2962 * Cross byte order fixes
2964 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2965 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2967 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2969 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2970 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2971 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2972 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2973 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2974 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2975 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2976 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2977 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2978 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2980 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2981 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2982 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2983 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2985 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2986 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2987 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2990 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2992 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2993 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2994 shared across multiple host platforms.
2996 * longjmp() handling
2998 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2999 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3000 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3001 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3005 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3006 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3011 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3012 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3013 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3015 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3017 * New machines supported (host and target)
3019 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3021 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3022 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3024 * New machines supported (target)
3026 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3030 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3031 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3032 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3034 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3035 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3036 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3037 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3038 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3041 * New features for SVR4
3043 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3044 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3045 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3047 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3048 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3049 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3051 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3052 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3054 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3056 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3057 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3058 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3059 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3060 same code linked statically.
3064 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3065 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3066 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3067 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3068 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3069 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3073 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3074 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3075 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3078 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3080 * New machines supported (host and target)
3082 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3083 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3084 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3086 * Almost SCO Unix support
3088 We had hoped to support:
3089 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3090 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3091 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3092 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3094 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3096 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3097 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3098 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3099 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3104 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3105 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3106 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3110 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3111 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3112 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3114 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3116 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3117 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3118 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3120 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3121 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3122 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3123 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3126 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3127 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3128 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3129 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3132 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3133 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3136 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3137 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3138 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3141 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3143 * Improved configuration
3145 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3146 Porting BFD is simpler.
3150 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3151 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3152 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3153 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3157 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3159 * New host supported (not target)
3161 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3164 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3166 * Multiple source language support
3168 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3169 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3170 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3171 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3172 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3173 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3177 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3178 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3179 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3180 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3182 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3183 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3184 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3186 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3187 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3191 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3192 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3193 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3194 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3197 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3199 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3200 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3201 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3202 examining core files.
3206 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3209 * New machines supported (host and target)
3211 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3212 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3213 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3215 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3217 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3219 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3221 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3222 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3223 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3225 * New remote interfaces
3231 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3235 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3237 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3238 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3239 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3240 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3241 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3242 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3243 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3244 stub on the target system.
3246 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3248 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3249 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3250 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3252 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3253 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3256 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3258 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3259 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3261 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3262 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3263 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3265 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3266 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3267 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3268 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3270 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3271 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3272 it is already running. Default is ON.
3274 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3275 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3276 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3277 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3280 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3281 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3282 or the value of the environment variable
3285 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3286 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3289 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3290 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3291 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3293 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3294 history expansion will be performed on
3295 command line input. The default is OFF.
3297 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3298 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3299 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3301 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3302 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3303 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3306 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3307 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3308 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3311 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3312 ``set width'' instead.
3314 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3315 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3316 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3317 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3319 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3322 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3325 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3328 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3331 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3333 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3334 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3335 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3339 * Support for Shared Libraries
3341 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3342 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3343 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3344 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3345 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3346 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3347 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3348 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3350 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3351 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3352 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3354 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3359 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3360 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3361 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3362 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3363 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3364 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3366 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3368 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3370 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3371 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3372 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3375 * C++ multiple inheritance
3377 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3380 * C++ exception handling
3382 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3383 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3384 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3387 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3388 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3389 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3391 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3392 current stack frame.
3395 * Minor command changes
3397 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3398 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3399 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3401 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3402 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3403 frames without printing.
3405 * New directory command
3407 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3408 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3409 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3410 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3411 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3413 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3415 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3418 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3419 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3420 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3421 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob