1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.1
8 The GDB Python API now has access to symbols, symbol tables, and
13 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
15 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
21 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
22 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
23 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
24 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
25 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
29 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
30 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
35 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
36 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
40 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
45 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
48 * Multi-program debugging.
50 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
51 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
52 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
53 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
54 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
55 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
56 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
57 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
59 * New tracing features
61 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
63 ** Trace state variables
65 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
66 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
67 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
68 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
69 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
70 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
71 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
72 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
73 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
74 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
78 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
79 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
80 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
81 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
82 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
83 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
84 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
85 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
86 the regular trace command.
88 ** Disconnected tracing
90 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
91 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
92 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
93 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
94 connection is lost unexpectedly.
98 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
99 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
100 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
101 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
102 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
103 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
109 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
110 the arguments to be comma-separated.
113 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
114 which only declare a variable are not shown.
117 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
118 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
121 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
122 "set script-extension" (see below).
124 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
126 record save [<FILENAME>]
127 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
128 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
130 record restore <FILENAME>
131 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
132 earlier time, for replay debugging.
134 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
137 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
138 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
144 maint info program-spaces
145 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
147 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
148 show remote interrupt-sequence
149 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
150 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
151 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
152 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
153 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
155 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
156 show remote interrupt-on-connect
157 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
158 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
161 set remotebreak [on | off]
163 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
165 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
166 Create or modify a trace state variable.
169 List trace state variables and their values.
171 delete tvariable $NAME ...
172 Delete one or more trace state variables.
175 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
176 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
178 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
179 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
181 * New expression syntax
183 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
184 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
188 set follow-exec-mode new|same
189 show follow-exec-mode
190 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
191 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
192 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
194 set default-collect EXPR, ...
196 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
197 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
198 such as registers or a critical global variable.
200 set disconnected-tracing
201 show disconnected-tracing
202 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
203 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
206 set script-extension off|soft|strict
207 show script-extension
208 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
209 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
210 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
211 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
213 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
215 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
216 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
217 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
218 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
219 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
220 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
221 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
224 * Python API Improvements
226 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
227 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
228 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
230 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
231 `is_base_class' attribute.
233 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
235 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
236 evaluate an expression.
241 Define a trace state variable.
244 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
247 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
250 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
254 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
256 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
257 much more reliable. In particular:
258 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
259 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
260 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
261 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
262 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
263 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
264 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
265 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
266 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
267 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
268 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
269 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
270 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
271 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
272 non-threaded programs.
274 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
275 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
276 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
279 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
281 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
282 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
283 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
284 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
285 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
287 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
288 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
289 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
290 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
291 for tracepoint actions.
293 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
294 in hex as well as in symbolic form.
296 * Process record and replay
298 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
299 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
300 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
303 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
304 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
305 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
308 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
309 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
312 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
313 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
314 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
315 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
316 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
317 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
318 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
319 the installation instructions for more information.
321 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
322 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
323 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
324 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
326 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
327 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
329 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
330 now complete on file names.
332 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
333 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
334 For instance, consider:
336 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
337 # struct example variable;
340 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
341 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
343 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
344 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
346 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
347 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
350 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
351 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
352 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
354 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
355 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
356 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
357 and simulator targets may also provide them.
362 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
365 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
366 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
367 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
370 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
371 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
374 Obtains additional operating system information
378 Read or write additional signal information.
380 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
382 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
383 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
384 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
386 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
389 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
390 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
392 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
393 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
394 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
396 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
397 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
399 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
401 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
403 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
404 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
406 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
407 list of section offsets.
409 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
410 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
411 have also been fixed.
413 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
414 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
415 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
417 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
420 template<typename T> class C { };
423 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
425 ptype C<char const *>
427 ptype C<const char *>
430 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
432 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
433 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
435 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
436 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
437 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
439 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
440 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
442 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
445 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
446 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
448 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
449 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
454 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
455 available is determined at configure time.
457 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
459 * Ada tasking support
461 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
465 Print the list of Ada tasks.
467 Print detailed information about task number N.
469 Print the task number of the current task.
471 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
473 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
474 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
476 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
478 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
479 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
480 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
481 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
482 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
483 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
486 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
487 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
490 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
491 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
492 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
493 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
496 * Multi-architecture debugging.
498 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
499 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
500 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
501 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
502 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
504 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
505 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
506 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
507 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
508 --enable-targets configure option.
510 * Non-stop mode debugging.
512 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
513 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
514 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
515 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
516 section in the user manual for more information.
518 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
519 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
520 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
521 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
522 extensions on linux targets.
524 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
526 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
527 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
528 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
529 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
530 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
531 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
532 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
533 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
534 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
536 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
538 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
540 maint set python print-stack
541 maint show python print-stack
542 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
545 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
550 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
554 Show operating system information about processes.
557 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
560 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
563 Detach from inferior number NUM.
566 Kill inferior number NUM.
571 show spu stop-on-load
572 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
574 set spu auto-flush-cache
575 show spu auto-flush-cache
576 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
577 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
579 set sh calling-convention
580 show sh calling-convention
581 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
585 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
587 set disassemble-next-line
588 show disassemble-next-line
589 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
592 set remote noack-packet
593 show remote noack-packet
594 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
595 under "New remote packets."
597 set remote query-attached-packet
598 show remote query-attached-packet
599 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
601 set remote read-siginfo-object
602 show remote read-siginfo-object
603 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
606 set remote write-siginfo-object
607 show remote write-siginfo-object
608 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
611 set remote reverse-continue
612 show remote reverse-continue
613 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
615 set remote reverse-step
616 show remote reverse-step
617 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
619 set displaced-stepping
620 show displaced-stepping
621 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
622 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
623 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
627 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
629 maint set internal-error
630 maint show internal-error
631 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
633 maint set internal-warning
634 maint show internal-warning
635 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
640 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
642 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
643 show multiple-symbols
644 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
645 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
646 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
648 set breakpoint always-inserted
649 show breakpoint always-inserted
650 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
651 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
652 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
654 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
655 show arm fallback-mode
656 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
658 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
659 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
660 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
661 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
663 set disable-randomization
664 show disable-randomization
665 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
666 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
667 multiple debugging sessions.
671 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
676 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
677 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
678 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
679 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
681 set target-wide-charset
682 show target-wide-charset
683 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
684 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
686 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
688 set tcp connect-timeout
689 show tcp connect-timeout
690 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
691 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
692 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
694 set libthread-db-search-path
695 show libthread-db-search-path
696 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
699 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
700 show schedule-multiple
701 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
706 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
707 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
708 affecting correctness.
710 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
711 show interactive-mode
712 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
713 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
714 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
715 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
716 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
721 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
722 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
723 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
727 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
728 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
729 alias for the `fork' command.
732 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
733 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
734 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
737 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
738 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
739 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
743 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
744 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
745 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
748 * New native configurations
750 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
752 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
756 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
757 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
758 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
761 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
762 (mingw32ce) debugging.
768 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
770 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
772 * New native configurations
774 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
775 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
779 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
780 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
782 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
784 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
785 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
786 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
787 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
789 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
790 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
792 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
795 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
796 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
797 and in inlined functions.
799 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
800 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
801 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
803 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
805 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
806 registers on PowerPC targets.
808 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
809 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
811 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
812 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
814 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
815 extended-remote mode.
817 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
818 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
819 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
820 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
822 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
823 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
824 target architectures.
826 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
827 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
828 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
829 stored in two consecutive float registers.
831 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
834 * Improved support for debugging Ada
835 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
837 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
838 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
839 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
840 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
842 - Improved command completion in Ada
845 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
850 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
851 show print frame-arguments
852 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
853 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
858 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
865 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
874 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
877 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
881 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
883 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
885 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
886 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
887 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
889 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
890 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
891 -Bsymbolic linker option.
893 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
894 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
897 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
898 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
900 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
901 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
903 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
905 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
906 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
907 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
909 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
910 automatically displayed as character or string data.
912 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
913 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
916 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
917 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
918 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
920 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
923 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
924 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
925 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
927 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
929 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
931 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
932 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
933 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
935 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
936 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
938 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
939 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
940 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
941 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
942 Windows and SymbianOS).
944 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
945 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
947 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
948 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
954 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
955 when debugging using remote targets.
957 set mem inaccessible-by-default
958 show mem inaccessible-by-default
959 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
960 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
961 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
962 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
963 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
965 set breakpoint auto-hw
966 show breakpoint auto-hw
967 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
968 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
969 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
970 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
971 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
972 including "next" and "finish".
975 catch exception unhandled
976 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
979 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
983 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
984 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
985 an alias to "set sysroot".
988 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
989 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
992 * New native configurations
994 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
999 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1000 not query the target for its built-in description.
1004 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1005 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1006 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1008 * New remote packets
1011 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1012 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1014 qXfer:features:read:
1015 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1020 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1021 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1023 qXfer:libraries:read:
1024 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1025 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1026 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1027 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1031 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1039 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1040 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1041 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1042 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1044 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1047 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1048 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1057 * Other removed features
1064 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1071 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1076 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1077 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1082 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1083 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1085 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1087 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1088 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1089 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1090 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1092 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1094 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1095 in debugging information.
1099 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1100 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1102 set mips stack-arg-size
1103 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1105 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1107 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1112 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1114 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1115 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1116 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1118 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1119 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1122 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1123 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1125 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1126 stub provides the required support.
1128 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1129 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1134 unset substitute-path
1135 show substitute-path
1136 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1137 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1138 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1139 between compilation and debugging.
1143 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1144 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1145 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1149 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1151 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1152 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1154 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1156 * New remote packets
1159 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1160 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1161 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1162 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1166 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1167 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1169 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1170 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1171 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1176 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1178 * Removed remote packets
1181 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1182 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1184 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1188 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1190 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1194 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1195 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1197 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1199 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1201 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1202 previously saved state.
1204 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1206 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1208 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1209 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1211 info forks List forks of the user program that
1212 are available to be debugged.
1214 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1215 forks of the user program that are
1216 available to be debugged.
1218 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1219 that are available to be debugged (and
1220 kill the forked process).
1222 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1223 that are available to be debugged (and
1224 allow the process to continue).
1228 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1230 * Improved Windows host support
1232 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1233 native console support, and remote communications using either
1234 network sockets or serial ports.
1236 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1238 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1239 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1240 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1241 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1242 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1243 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1247 The ARM rdi-share module.
1249 The Netware NLM debug server.
1251 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1253 * New native configurations
1255 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1256 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1260 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1262 * New command line options
1264 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1265 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1266 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1267 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1268 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1269 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1270 with the --command (-x) option.
1272 * Deprecated commands removed
1274 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1278 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1279 othernames set arm disassembler
1280 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1281 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1282 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1285 * New BSD user-level threads support
1287 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1288 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1291 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1292 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1293 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1295 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1296 are not yet supported.
1298 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1299 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1301 * REMOVED configurations and files
1303 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1304 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1305 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1307 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1309 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1310 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1313 * VAX floating point support
1315 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1317 * User-defined command support
1319 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1320 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1321 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1323 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1325 * New command line option
1327 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1330 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1332 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1333 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1334 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1335 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1336 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1338 * Internationalization
1340 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1341 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1342 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1346 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1347 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1348 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1350 * New native configurations
1352 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1356 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1357 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1359 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1361 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1362 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1363 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1366 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1367 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1368 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1378 powerpc bdm protocol
1380 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1381 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1383 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1385 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1386 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1387 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1388 permanently REMOVED.
1397 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1399 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1401 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1402 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1405 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1407 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1408 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1409 IRIX long double values).
1413 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1414 command. This problem has been fixed.
1416 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1418 * Fix for ``many threads''
1420 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1421 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1424 ptrace: No such process.
1425 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1427 This problem has been fixed.
1429 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1431 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1434 * New ``start'' command.
1436 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1438 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1440 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1441 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1442 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1444 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1445 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1446 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1447 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1448 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1449 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1450 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1451 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1452 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1454 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1456 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1457 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1458 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1459 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1460 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1462 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1463 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1464 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1466 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1468 * New native configurations
1470 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1471 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1472 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1473 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1474 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1475 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1476 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1478 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1480 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1481 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1482 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1483 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1484 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1485 work, was also included.
1487 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1488 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1498 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1499 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1501 * REMOVED configurations and files
1503 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1504 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1505 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1506 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1507 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1508 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1509 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1510 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1511 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1512 sonymips mips-sony-*
1513 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1515 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1517 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1519 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1520 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1521 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1522 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1525 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1527 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1528 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1529 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1530 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1531 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1532 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1535 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1537 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1539 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1540 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1541 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1543 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1545 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1546 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1548 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1550 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1551 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1552 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1554 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1556 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1557 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1559 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1561 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1562 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1563 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1565 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1567 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1568 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1569 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1571 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1573 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1575 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1576 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1578 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1580 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1581 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1582 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1583 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1585 * Revised SPARC target
1587 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1588 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1589 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1590 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1591 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1595 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1596 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1597 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1600 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1602 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1603 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1606 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1608 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1609 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1610 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1611 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1612 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1613 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1614 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1615 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1616 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1618 * New native configurations
1620 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1621 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1622 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1623 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1624 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1626 * New debugging protocols
1628 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1630 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1632 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1633 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1634 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1636 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1638 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1639 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1640 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1641 permanently REMOVED.
1643 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1644 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1645 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1646 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1647 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1648 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1649 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1650 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1651 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1652 sonymips mips-sony-*
1653 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1655 * REMOVED configurations and files
1657 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1658 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1659 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1660 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1661 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1662 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1663 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1664 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1665 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1666 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1667 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1668 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1669 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1670 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1671 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1672 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1673 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1675 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1679 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1680 integrated into GDB.
1682 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1684 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1685 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1686 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1689 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1690 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1691 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1695 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1696 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1697 remote protocol documentation for details.
1699 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1701 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1702 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1703 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1706 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1708 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1709 per-thread variables.
1711 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1713 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1714 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1716 * Separate debug info.
1718 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1719 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1720 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1721 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1722 and optional debug files.
1724 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1726 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1727 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1730 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1731 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1735 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1736 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1737 considered "useable".
1739 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1741 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1742 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1745 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1747 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1748 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1750 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1752 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1753 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1756 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1758 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1759 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1763 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1764 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1765 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1766 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1767 data, for more informative profiling results.
1769 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1771 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1772 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1773 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1775 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1778 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1779 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1780 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1781 in a subsequent -var-update.
1783 * New native configurations.
1785 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1787 * Multi-arched targets.
1789 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1790 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1792 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1794 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1795 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1796 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1797 permanently REMOVED.
1799 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1800 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1801 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1802 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1803 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1804 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1805 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1806 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1807 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1808 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1809 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1810 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1812 * REMOVED configurations and files
1815 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1816 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1817 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1818 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1819 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1820 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1822 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1823 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1824 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1825 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1826 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1827 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1829 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1831 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1832 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1833 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1834 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1835 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1837 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1839 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1841 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1842 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1843 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1844 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1845 shared libs like mad''.
1847 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1849 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1850 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1851 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1852 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1854 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1856 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1857 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1860 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1861 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1863 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1864 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1866 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1867 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1868 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1869 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1871 * Multi-arched targets.
1873 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1874 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1876 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1877 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1878 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1882 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1885 * New native configurations
1887 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1888 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1889 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1890 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1892 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1894 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1895 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1896 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1897 permanently REMOVED.
1899 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1900 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1901 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1902 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1903 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1904 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1905 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1906 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1907 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1908 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1910 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1911 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1913 * OBSOLETE languages
1915 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1917 * REMOVED configurations and files
1919 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1920 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1921 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1922 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1923 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1925 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1927 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1929 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1930 commands. The default is 1024.
1932 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1934 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1936 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1938 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1939 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1940 from a file into memory (restore).
1942 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1944 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1945 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1946 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1948 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1956 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1957 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1958 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1960 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1961 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1962 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1964 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1965 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1966 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1968 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1969 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1970 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1972 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1974 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1976 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1977 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1978 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1979 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1980 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1981 (notably embedded) targets.
1983 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1985 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1986 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1987 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1988 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1990 * New command line option
1992 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1994 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1996 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1997 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1998 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1999 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2000 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2001 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2002 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2003 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2004 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2005 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2007 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2009 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2010 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2012 * New native configurations
2014 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2015 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2016 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2017 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2021 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2023 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2025 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2026 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2027 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2028 permanently REMOVED.
2030 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2031 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2032 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2033 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2034 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2036 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2038 * REMOVED configurations and files
2040 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2042 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2043 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2044 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2045 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2046 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2047 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2048 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2049 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2050 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2051 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2052 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2054 * Changes to command line processing
2056 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2057 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2059 * Changes to key bindings
2061 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2063 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2065 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2067 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2070 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2072 Numerous documentation fixes.
2074 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2076 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2078 * New native configurations
2080 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2081 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2082 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2083 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2084 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2085 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2089 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2091 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2093 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2095 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2096 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2097 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2098 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2099 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2101 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2102 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2103 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2104 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2105 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2106 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2107 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2108 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2110 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2111 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2113 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2114 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2115 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2116 permanently REMOVED.
2118 * REMOVED configurations and files
2120 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2121 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2123 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2127 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2129 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2130 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2135 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2137 * The MI enabled by default.
2139 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2140 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2141 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2142 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2143 which is now deprecated.
2145 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2147 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2148 main features are supported:
2150 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2152 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2155 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2157 - a Pascal expression parser.
2159 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2161 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2163 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2165 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2166 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2168 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2170 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2172 * Changes in completion.
2174 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2175 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2176 users expect at the shell prompt.
2178 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2179 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2180 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2181 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2182 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2183 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2184 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2186 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2188 * New platform-independent commands:
2190 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2191 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2192 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2194 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2196 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2197 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2198 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2200 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2202 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2203 multi-threaded programs though.
2205 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2207 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2209 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2210 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2213 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2215 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2216 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2217 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2218 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2219 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2222 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2223 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2224 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2226 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2228 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2229 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2231 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2232 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2235 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2236 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2237 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2238 a given linear address.
2240 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2241 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2242 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2244 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2246 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2248 * Changes in documentation.
2250 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2251 Documentation License.
2253 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2256 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2258 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2261 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2262 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2263 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2265 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2267 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2268 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2269 contents of this file.
2273 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2275 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2277 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2279 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2280 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2281 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2282 greater level of detail.
2284 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2286 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2287 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2288 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2291 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2293 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2294 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2295 machines ``out of the box''.
2297 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2298 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2299 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2300 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2301 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2303 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2304 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2305 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2306 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2307 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2309 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2310 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2313 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2316 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2317 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2318 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2319 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2321 * New native configurations
2323 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2324 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2328 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2329 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2330 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2331 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2333 * OBSOLETE configurations
2335 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2336 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2338 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2341 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2342 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2343 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2344 be permanently REMOVED.
2346 * Gould support removed
2348 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2350 * New features for SVR4
2352 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2353 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2354 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2356 * Many C++ enhancements
2358 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2359 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2361 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2363 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2364 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2365 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2366 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2368 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2369 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2371 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2373 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2374 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2375 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2377 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2378 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2380 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2382 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2383 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2384 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2386 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2388 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2389 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2390 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2392 * ``apropos'' command added.
2394 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2395 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2396 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2400 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2401 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2402 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2403 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2404 enabled by configuring with:
2406 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2408 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2410 * New native configurations
2412 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2413 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2414 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2418 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2419 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2420 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2422 * OBSOLETE configurations
2424 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2426 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2427 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2428 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2429 be permanently REMOVED.
2433 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2434 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2435 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2436 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2437 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2438 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2439 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2444 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2446 * set extension-language
2448 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2449 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2450 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2451 set extension-language .c c++
2452 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2453 and their associated languages.
2455 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2457 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2458 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2459 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2463 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2464 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2466 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2467 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2469 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2470 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2471 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2472 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2473 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2474 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2475 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2476 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2478 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2479 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2480 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2481 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2485 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2486 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2487 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2488 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2489 for xdb and dbx commands.
2493 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2494 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2495 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2497 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2498 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2499 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2501 * Debugging across forks
2503 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2508 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2509 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2510 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2512 * GDB remote protocol additions
2514 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2515 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2516 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2517 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2519 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2520 full 64-bit address. The command
2522 set remoteaddresssize 32
2524 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2525 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2528 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2529 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2531 maint packet heythere
2533 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2534 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2537 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2538 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2539 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2541 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2543 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2544 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2545 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2547 * mask-address variable for Mips
2549 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2550 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2551 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2553 * Higher serial baud rates
2555 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2556 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2557 to achieve all of these rates.)
2561 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2562 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2565 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2567 * New native configurations
2569 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2570 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2571 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2572 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2573 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2574 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2575 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2579 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2580 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2581 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2582 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2583 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2584 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2585 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2586 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2587 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2588 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2589 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2591 * New debugging protocols
2593 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2594 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2595 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2596 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2597 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2598 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2602 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2603 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2608 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2609 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2611 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2613 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2614 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2615 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2617 * Live range splitting
2619 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2620 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2621 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2625 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2626 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2630 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2631 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2632 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2637 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2642 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2643 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2644 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2645 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2646 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2647 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2651 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2652 the symbol at the specified address.
2656 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2657 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2658 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2659 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2660 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2664 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2665 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2666 of most MIPS variants.
2670 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2671 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2672 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2676 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2677 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2678 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2679 the possible architectures.
2681 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2683 * New native configurations
2685 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2686 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2687 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2688 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2689 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2690 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2694 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2695 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2696 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2697 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2698 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2700 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2704 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2705 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2706 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2707 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2708 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2712 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2714 * Windows 95/NT native
2716 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2717 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2718 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2719 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2720 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2722 * dont-repeat command
2724 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2725 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2726 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2727 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2729 * Send break instead of ^C
2731 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2732 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2733 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2735 * Remote protocol timeout
2737 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2738 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2739 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2741 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2743 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2744 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2745 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2746 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2747 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2749 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2750 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2751 automatically on hpux10.
2753 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2755 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2757 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2759 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2760 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2761 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2762 every character. The default value is 1050.
2764 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2766 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2767 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2768 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2769 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2770 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2771 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2773 * Speedups for remote debugging
2775 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2776 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2777 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2779 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2781 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2782 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2784 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2786 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2788 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2789 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2791 * Remote targets use caching
2793 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2794 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2795 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2796 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2797 off' turns the the data cache off.
2799 * Remote targets may have threads
2801 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2802 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2803 gdb/remote.c for details.
2807 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2808 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2809 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2810 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2811 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2812 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2813 sequence is something like
2815 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2817 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2821 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2822 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2823 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2824 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2825 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2826 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2827 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2828 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2832 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2833 but does simplify configuration and building.
2837 GDB now supports hpux10.
2839 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2841 * New native configurations
2843 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2844 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2845 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2846 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2850 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2851 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2852 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2853 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2856 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2858 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2859 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2860 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2861 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2862 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2864 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2866 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2867 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2870 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2872 To execute the command use:
2875 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2876 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2877 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2879 * New `if' and `while' commands
2881 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2882 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2883 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2884 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2885 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2886 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2887 if the expression is zero.
2889 * Fortran source language mode
2891 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2892 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2893 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2894 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2897 * Better HPUX support
2899 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2900 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2901 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2902 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2903 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2909 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2910 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2916 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2917 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2920 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2921 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2923 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2925 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2926 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2927 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2928 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2929 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2930 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2932 * New DOS host serial code
2934 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2935 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2938 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2940 * New "complete" command
2942 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2943 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2945 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2947 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2948 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2950 * Breakpoint hit counts
2952 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2953 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2954 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2955 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2956 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2959 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2961 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2962 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2963 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2965 * Shared library breakpoints
2967 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2968 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2970 * Hardware watchpoints
2972 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2973 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2975 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2979 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2980 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2982 * Improved Irix 5 support
2984 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2986 * Improved HPPA support
2988 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2990 * New native configurations
2992 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2993 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2994 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2995 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2999 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3000 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3003 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3005 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3006 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3010 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3011 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3013 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3015 * Irix 5 is now supported
3019 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3020 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3021 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3022 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3023 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3026 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3028 * User visible changes:
3032 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3033 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3034 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3035 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3036 debugging info for the mips target).
3038 * DEC Alpha native support
3040 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3041 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3042 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3043 Alpha-specific notes.
3045 * Preliminary thread implementation
3047 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3049 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3051 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3052 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3055 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3057 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3058 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3059 call methods, ...etc.
3061 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3063 * User visible changes:
3065 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3066 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3067 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3068 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3070 Filename completion now works.
3072 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3073 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3074 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3076 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3077 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3078 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3079 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3080 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3084 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3085 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3088 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3092 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3093 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3094 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3098 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3099 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3100 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3101 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3102 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3106 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3107 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3108 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3110 * New targets supported
3112 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3113 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3114 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3115 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3116 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3118 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3119 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3120 GO32 memory extender.
3122 * New remote protocols
3124 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3126 * New source languages supported
3128 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3129 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3130 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3133 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3135 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3137 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3138 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3139 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3140 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3141 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3142 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3144 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3146 * Faster and better demangling
3148 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3149 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3150 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3151 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3152 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3153 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3156 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3157 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3158 compiler does not actually implement.
3160 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3162 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3163 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3164 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3165 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3166 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3167 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3170 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3171 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3173 * Improved configure script
3175 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3176 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3177 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3178 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3180 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3181 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3182 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3183 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3184 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3185 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3187 * Documentation improvements
3189 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3190 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3191 before submitting changes.
3193 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3194 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3195 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3196 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3197 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3199 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3200 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3201 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3202 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3203 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3204 around this problem.
3208 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3209 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3210 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3213 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3214 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3216 * New native hosts supported
3218 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3219 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3221 * New targets supported
3223 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3225 * New file formats supported
3227 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3228 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3232 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3234 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3235 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3237 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3238 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3239 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3241 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3242 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3244 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3245 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3246 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3249 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3250 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3251 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3252 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3253 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3255 * Internal improvements
3257 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3258 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3260 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3261 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3262 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3263 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3264 shared code that handles any of them.
3266 * New command line options
3268 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3272 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3273 General Public License.
3275 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3277 * Host/native/target split
3279 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3280 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3281 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3282 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3283 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3285 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3286 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3287 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3288 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3289 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3290 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3291 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3293 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3294 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3295 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3297 * New hosts supported
3299 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3300 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3301 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3303 * New targets supported
3305 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3306 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3308 * New native hosts supported
3310 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3311 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3312 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3314 * New file formats supported
3316 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3317 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3318 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3322 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3323 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3324 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3326 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3328 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3329 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3330 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3331 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3335 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3336 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3337 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3339 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3343 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3344 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3347 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3348 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3350 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3351 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3352 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3353 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3354 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3355 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3357 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3358 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3359 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3360 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3364 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3365 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3366 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3367 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3368 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3370 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3371 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3372 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3373 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3377 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3378 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3379 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3380 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3381 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3382 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3383 each instruction being stepped through.
3385 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3386 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3388 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3389 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3390 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3391 processor with a serial port.
3395 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3396 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3397 supported, and what files each one uses.
3401 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3402 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3403 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3404 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3406 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3407 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3408 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3409 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3413 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3414 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3415 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3416 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3417 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3418 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3420 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3423 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3425 * Better support for C++ function names
3427 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3428 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3429 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3430 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3431 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3433 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3434 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3435 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3436 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3437 for the list of formats.
3439 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3441 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3442 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3443 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3444 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3445 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3446 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3449 * New 'maintenance' command
3451 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3452 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3453 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3455 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3456 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3457 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3458 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3459 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3460 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3462 The following commands are new:
3464 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3465 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3466 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3468 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3470 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3471 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3472 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3473 read after argv processing.
3475 * New hosts supported
3477 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3479 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3481 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3482 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3483 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3484 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3485 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3488 * New targets supported
3490 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3492 * More smarts about finding #include files
3494 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3495 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3496 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3497 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3498 the one that contains your sources.
3500 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3501 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3502 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3504 * Interesting infernals change
3506 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3507 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3508 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3509 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3511 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3513 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3514 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3515 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3517 See the ChangeLog for details.
3519 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3521 * New machines supported (host and target)
3523 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3525 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3527 * New malloc package
3529 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3530 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3531 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3532 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3533 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3534 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3538 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3539 'help info proc' for details.
3541 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3543 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3544 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3547 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3549 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3550 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3551 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3552 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3553 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3554 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3556 * Cross byte order fixes
3558 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3559 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3561 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3563 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3564 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3565 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3566 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3567 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3568 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3569 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3570 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3571 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3572 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3574 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3575 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3576 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3577 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3579 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3580 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3581 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3584 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3586 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3587 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3588 shared across multiple host platforms.
3590 * longjmp() handling
3592 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3593 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3594 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3595 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3599 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3600 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3605 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3606 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3607 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3609 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3611 * New machines supported (host and target)
3613 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3615 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3616 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3618 * New machines supported (target)
3620 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3624 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3625 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3626 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3628 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3629 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3630 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3631 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3632 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3635 * New features for SVR4
3637 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3638 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3639 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3641 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3642 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3643 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3645 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3646 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3648 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3650 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3651 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3652 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3653 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3654 same code linked statically.
3658 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3659 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3660 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3661 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3662 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3663 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3667 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3668 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3669 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3672 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3674 * New machines supported (host and target)
3676 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3677 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3678 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3680 * Almost SCO Unix support
3682 We had hoped to support:
3683 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3684 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3685 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3686 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3688 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3690 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3691 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3692 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3693 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3698 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3699 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3700 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3704 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3705 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3706 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3708 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3710 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3711 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3712 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3714 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3715 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3716 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3717 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3720 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3721 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3722 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3723 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3726 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3727 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3730 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3731 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3732 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3735 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3737 * Improved configuration
3739 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3740 Porting BFD is simpler.
3744 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3745 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3746 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3747 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3751 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3753 * New host supported (not target)
3755 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3758 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3760 * Multiple source language support
3762 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3763 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3764 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3765 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3766 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3767 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3771 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3772 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3773 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3774 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3776 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3777 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3778 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3780 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3781 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3785 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3786 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3787 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3788 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3791 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3793 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3794 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3795 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3796 examining core files.
3800 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3803 * New machines supported (host and target)
3805 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3806 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3807 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3809 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3811 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3813 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3815 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3816 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3817 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3819 * New remote interfaces
3825 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3829 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3831 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3832 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3833 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3834 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3835 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3836 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3837 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3838 stub on the target system.
3840 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3842 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3843 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3844 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3846 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3847 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3850 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3852 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3853 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3855 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3856 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3857 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3859 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3860 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3861 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3862 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3864 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3865 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3866 it is already running. Default is ON.
3868 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3869 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3870 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3871 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3874 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3875 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3876 or the value of the environment variable
3879 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3880 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3883 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3884 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3885 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3887 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3888 history expansion will be performed on
3889 command line input. The default is OFF.
3891 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3892 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3893 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3895 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3896 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3897 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3900 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3901 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3902 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3905 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3906 ``set width'' instead.
3908 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3909 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3910 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3911 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3913 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3916 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3919 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3922 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3925 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3927 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3928 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3929 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3933 * Support for Shared Libraries
3935 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3936 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3937 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3938 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3939 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3940 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3941 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3942 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3944 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3945 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3946 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3948 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3953 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3954 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3955 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3956 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3957 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3958 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3960 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3962 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3964 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3965 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3966 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3969 * C++ multiple inheritance
3971 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3974 * C++ exception handling
3976 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3977 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3978 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3981 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3982 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3983 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3985 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3986 current stack frame.
3989 * Minor command changes
3991 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3992 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3993 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3995 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3996 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3997 frames without printing.
3999 * New directory command
4001 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4002 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4003 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4004 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4005 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4007 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4009 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4012 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4013 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4014 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4015 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob