1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
6 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
7 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
9 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
10 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
11 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
12 target hardware watchpoint.
14 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
15 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
16 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
17 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
21 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
22 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
25 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
26 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
27 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
30 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
33 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
34 modules library. This module provides functionality for
35 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
36 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
39 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
40 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
41 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
44 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
45 static_block will return the global and static blocks
46 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
47 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
49 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
51 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
54 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
55 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
56 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
59 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
62 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
63 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
64 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
65 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
68 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
69 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
70 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
73 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
74 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
75 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
76 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
77 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
79 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
80 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
82 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
83 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
84 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
85 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
86 use this option to specify where to find it.
88 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
89 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
90 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
91 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
92 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
93 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
94 section in the user manual for more details.
96 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
97 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
98 become available after that.
100 * New commands "info macros", "info definitions",
101 and "alias" have been added.
103 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
104 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
109 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
110 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
111 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
113 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
114 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
115 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
117 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
118 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
119 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
120 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
121 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
128 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
129 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
130 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
131 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
134 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
135 show print entry-values
136 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
137 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
138 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
140 set debug entry-values
141 show debug entry-values
142 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
143 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
149 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
153 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
155 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
156 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
160 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
162 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
164 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
166 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
168 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
169 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
170 matches the given regular expression.
172 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
174 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
175 dumping the instruction opcodes.
177 * New command line options
179 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
180 This is mostly for testing purposes.
182 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
183 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
185 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
186 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
187 source path list instead of augmenting it.
189 * GDB now understands thread names.
191 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
192 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
194 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
195 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
198 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
199 has been integrated into GDB.
203 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
204 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
205 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
207 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
208 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
209 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
210 and allows for more dynamic content.
212 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
213 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
214 have an is_valid method.
216 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
217 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
218 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
220 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
222 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
223 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
224 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
225 that function like so:
227 result = some_value (10,20)
229 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
230 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
231 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
233 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
234 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
235 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
236 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
237 New function: register_pretty_printer.
239 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
240 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
242 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
244 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
247 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
248 holds the thread's name.
250 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
251 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
252 occurring in the process being debugged.
253 The following events are currently supported:
254 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
255 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
256 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
260 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
261 instantiation. For example, if you have:
263 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
265 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
266 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
267 was added to GCC 4.5.
269 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
270 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
271 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
272 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
273 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
274 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
276 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
277 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
278 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
279 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
280 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
282 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
283 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
284 execution to a label.
286 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
287 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
288 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
289 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
291 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
292 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
293 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
296 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
298 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
299 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
300 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
301 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
302 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
303 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
306 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
308 While now you see this:
311 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
313 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
316 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
317 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
318 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
319 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
321 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
322 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
323 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
324 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
325 section in the user manual for more details.
327 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
329 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
330 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
332 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
334 * New native configurations
336 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
340 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
342 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
343 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
344 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
345 in the GDB user manual.
347 * Guile support was removed.
349 * New features in the GNU simulator
351 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
353 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
355 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
357 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
359 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
360 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
361 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
362 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
363 was always disabled for such configurations.
367 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
369 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
370 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
380 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
381 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
382 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
384 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
386 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
387 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
388 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
389 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
391 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
392 mentioned flavors of operators.
394 ** static const class members
396 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
397 class definition has been fixed.
399 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
401 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
402 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
403 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
404 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
405 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
406 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
410 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
411 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
412 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
413 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
414 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
415 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
416 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
417 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
418 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
419 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
420 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
421 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
422 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
423 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
424 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
425 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
426 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
427 the "New remote packets" section below.
429 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
431 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
432 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
433 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
434 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
438 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
439 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
440 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
441 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
442 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
443 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
444 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
446 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
453 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
457 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
458 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
459 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
460 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
461 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
462 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
466 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
470 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
473 qXfer:statictrace:read
475 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
476 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
477 to gdb's qSupported query.
481 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
485 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
486 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
488 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
489 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
492 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
494 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
495 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
496 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
497 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
499 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
500 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
501 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
502 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
503 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
504 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
505 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
507 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
508 for static tracepoints support.
510 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
512 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
513 it understands register description.
515 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
517 * X86 general purpose registers
519 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
520 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
521 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
522 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
523 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
525 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
526 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
527 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
528 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
529 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
530 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
532 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
533 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
534 in the specified file.
536 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
537 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
538 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
539 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
540 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
541 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
542 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
543 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
544 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
545 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
549 eval template, expressions...
550 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
551 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
553 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
554 show target-file-system-kind
555 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
558 save breakpoints <filename>
559 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
560 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
561 definitions, use the `source' command.
563 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
566 info static-tracepoint-markers
567 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
569 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
570 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
571 function, line, address, or marker ID.
575 Enable and disable observer mode.
577 set may-write-registers on|off
578 set may-write-memory on|off
579 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
580 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
581 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
582 set may-interrupt on|off
583 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
584 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
585 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
586 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
587 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
588 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
589 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
591 set record memory-query on|off
592 show record memory-query
593 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
594 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
599 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
603 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
604 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
605 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
606 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
607 GDB using Python' in the manual.
609 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
610 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
611 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
612 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
614 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
615 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
617 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
619 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
621 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
623 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
624 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
625 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
627 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
628 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
629 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
634 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
636 * D language support.
637 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
640 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
641 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
642 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
643 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
644 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
646 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
647 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
648 conditions of the form:
650 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
652 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
653 interface mentioned above.
655 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
661 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
662 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
663 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
664 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
665 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
669 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
670 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
675 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
676 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
680 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
685 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
688 * Multi-program debugging.
690 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
691 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
692 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
693 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
694 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
695 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
696 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
697 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
699 * New tracing features
701 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
703 ** Trace state variables
705 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
706 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
707 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
708 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
709 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
710 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
711 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
712 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
713 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
714 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
718 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
719 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
720 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
721 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
722 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
723 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
724 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
725 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
726 the regular trace command.
728 ** Disconnected tracing
730 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
731 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
732 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
733 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
734 connection is lost unexpectedly.
738 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
739 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
740 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
741 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
742 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
743 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
746 ** Circular trace buffer
748 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
749 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
750 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
751 not be available for all target agents.
756 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
757 the arguments to be comma-separated.
760 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
761 which only declare a variable are not shown.
764 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
765 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
768 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
769 "set script-extension" (see below).
771 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
773 record save [<FILENAME>]
774 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
775 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
777 record restore <FILENAME>
778 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
779 earlier time, for replay debugging.
781 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
784 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
785 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
791 maint info program-spaces
792 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
794 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
795 show remote interrupt-sequence
796 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
797 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
798 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
799 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
800 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
802 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
803 show remote interrupt-on-connect
804 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
805 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
808 set remotebreak [on | off]
810 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
812 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
813 Create or modify a trace state variable.
816 List trace state variables and their values.
818 delete tvariable $NAME ...
819 Delete one or more trace state variables.
822 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
823 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
825 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
826 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
828 * New expression syntax
830 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
831 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
835 set follow-exec-mode new|same
836 show follow-exec-mode
837 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
838 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
839 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
841 set default-collect EXPR, ...
843 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
844 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
845 such as registers or a critical global variable.
847 set disconnected-tracing
848 show disconnected-tracing
849 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
850 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
853 set circular-trace-buffer
854 show circular-trace-buffer
855 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
856 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
857 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
858 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
860 set script-extension off|soft|strict
861 show script-extension
862 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
863 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
864 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
865 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
867 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
869 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
870 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
871 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
872 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
873 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
874 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
875 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
878 * Python API Improvements
880 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
881 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
882 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
884 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
885 `is_base_class' attribute.
887 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
889 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
890 evaluate an expression.
895 Define a trace state variable.
898 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
901 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
904 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
907 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
911 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
913 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
914 much more reliable. In particular:
915 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
916 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
917 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
918 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
919 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
920 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
921 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
922 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
923 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
924 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
925 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
926 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
927 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
928 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
929 non-threaded programs.
931 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
932 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
933 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
936 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
938 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
939 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
940 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
941 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
942 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
944 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
945 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
946 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
947 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
948 for tracepoint actions.
950 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
951 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
952 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
954 * Process record and replay
956 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
957 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
958 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
961 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
962 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
963 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
966 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
967 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
970 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
971 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
972 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
973 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
974 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
975 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
976 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
977 the installation instructions for more information.
979 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
980 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
981 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
982 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
984 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
985 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
987 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
988 now complete on file names.
990 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
991 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
992 For instance, consider:
994 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
995 # struct example variable;
998 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
999 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1001 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1002 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1004 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1005 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1008 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1009 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1010 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1012 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1013 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1014 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1015 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1017 * New remote packets
1020 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1023 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1024 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1025 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1028 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1029 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1032 Obtains additional operating system information
1036 Read or write additional signal information.
1038 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1040 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1041 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1042 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1044 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1045 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1047 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1048 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1049 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1051 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1052 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1054 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1056 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1058 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1059 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1061 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1062 list of section offsets.
1064 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1065 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1066 have also been fixed.
1068 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1069 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1070 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1072 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1075 template<typename T> class C { };
1078 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1080 ptype C<char const *>
1081 ptype C<char const*>
1082 ptype C<const char *>
1083 ptype C<const char*>
1085 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1087 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1088 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1090 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1091 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1092 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1094 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1095 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1097 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1100 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1101 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1103 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1104 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1109 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1110 available is determined at configure time.
1112 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1114 * Ada tasking support
1116 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1120 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1122 Print detailed information about task number N.
1124 Print the task number of the current task.
1126 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1128 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1129 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1131 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1133 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1134 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1135 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1136 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1137 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1138 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1141 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1142 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1145 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1146 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1147 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1148 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1151 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1153 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1154 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1155 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1156 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1157 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1159 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1160 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1161 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1162 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1163 --enable-targets configure option.
1165 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1167 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1168 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1169 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1170 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1171 section in the user manual for more information.
1173 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1174 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1175 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1176 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1177 extensions on linux targets.
1179 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1181 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1182 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1183 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1184 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1185 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1186 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1187 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1188 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1189 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1191 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1193 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1195 maint set python print-stack
1196 maint show python print-stack
1197 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1200 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1205 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1209 Show operating system information about processes.
1212 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1215 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1218 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1221 Kill inferior number NUM.
1225 set spu stop-on-load
1226 show spu stop-on-load
1227 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1229 set spu auto-flush-cache
1230 show spu auto-flush-cache
1231 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1232 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1234 set sh calling-convention
1235 show sh calling-convention
1236 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1239 show debug timestamp
1240 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1242 set disassemble-next-line
1243 show disassemble-next-line
1244 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1247 set remote noack-packet
1248 show remote noack-packet
1249 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1250 under "New remote packets."
1252 set remote query-attached-packet
1253 show remote query-attached-packet
1254 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1256 set remote read-siginfo-object
1257 show remote read-siginfo-object
1258 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1261 set remote write-siginfo-object
1262 show remote write-siginfo-object
1263 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1266 set remote reverse-continue
1267 show remote reverse-continue
1268 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1270 set remote reverse-step
1271 show remote reverse-step
1272 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1274 set displaced-stepping
1275 show displaced-stepping
1276 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1277 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1278 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1281 show debug displaced
1282 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1284 maint set internal-error
1285 maint show internal-error
1286 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1288 maint set internal-warning
1289 maint show internal-warning
1290 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1295 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1297 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1298 show multiple-symbols
1299 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1300 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1301 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1303 set breakpoint always-inserted
1304 show breakpoint always-inserted
1305 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1306 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1307 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1309 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1310 show arm fallback-mode
1311 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1313 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1314 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1315 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1316 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1318 set disable-randomization
1319 show disable-randomization
1320 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1321 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1322 multiple debugging sessions.
1326 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1331 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1332 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1333 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1334 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1336 set target-wide-charset
1337 show target-wide-charset
1338 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1339 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1341 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1343 set tcp connect-timeout
1344 show tcp connect-timeout
1345 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1346 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1347 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1349 set libthread-db-search-path
1350 show libthread-db-search-path
1351 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1354 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1355 show schedule-multiple
1356 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1357 the current process.
1361 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1362 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1363 affecting correctness.
1365 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1366 show interactive-mode
1367 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1368 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1369 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1370 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1371 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1376 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1377 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1378 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1382 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1383 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1384 alias for the `fork' command.
1387 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1388 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1389 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1392 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1393 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1394 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1398 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1399 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1400 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1403 * New native configurations
1405 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1407 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1411 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1412 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1413 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1416 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1417 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1423 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1425 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1427 * New native configurations
1429 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1430 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1434 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1435 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1437 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1439 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1440 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1441 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1442 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1444 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1445 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1447 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1450 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1451 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1452 and in inlined functions.
1454 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1455 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1456 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1458 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1460 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1461 registers on PowerPC targets.
1463 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1464 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1466 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1467 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1469 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1470 extended-remote mode.
1472 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1473 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1474 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1475 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1477 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1478 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1479 target architectures.
1481 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1482 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1483 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1484 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1486 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1489 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1490 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1492 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1493 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1494 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1495 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1497 - Improved command completion in Ada
1500 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1505 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1506 show print frame-arguments
1507 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1508 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1513 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1520 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1522 * New remote packets
1529 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1532 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1536 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1538 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1540 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1541 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1542 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1544 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1545 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1546 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1548 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1549 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1552 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1553 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1555 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1556 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1558 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1560 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1561 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1562 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1564 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1565 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1567 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1568 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1571 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1572 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1573 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1575 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1578 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1579 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1580 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1582 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1584 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1586 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1587 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1588 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1590 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1591 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1593 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1594 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1595 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1596 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1597 Windows and SymbianOS).
1599 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1600 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1602 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1603 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1609 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1610 when debugging using remote targets.
1612 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1613 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1614 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1615 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1616 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1617 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1618 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1620 set breakpoint auto-hw
1621 show breakpoint auto-hw
1622 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1623 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1624 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1625 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1626 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1627 including "next" and "finish".
1630 catch exception unhandled
1631 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1634 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1638 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1639 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1640 an alias to "set sysroot".
1643 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1644 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1647 * New native configurations
1649 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1652 unset tdesc filename
1654 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1655 not query the target for its built-in description.
1659 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1660 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1661 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1663 * New remote packets
1666 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1667 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1669 qXfer:features:read:
1670 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1675 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1676 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1678 qXfer:libraries:read:
1679 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1680 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1681 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1682 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1686 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1694 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1695 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1696 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1697 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1699 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1702 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1703 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1712 * Other removed features
1719 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1726 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1731 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1732 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1737 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1738 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1740 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1742 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1743 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1744 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1745 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1747 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1749 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1750 in debugging information.
1754 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1755 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1757 set mips stack-arg-size
1758 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1760 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1762 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1767 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1769 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1770 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1771 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1773 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1774 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1777 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1778 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1780 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1781 stub provides the required support.
1783 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1784 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1789 unset substitute-path
1790 show substitute-path
1791 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1792 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1793 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1794 between compilation and debugging.
1798 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1799 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1800 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1804 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1806 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1807 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1809 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1811 * New remote packets
1814 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1815 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1816 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1817 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1821 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1822 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1824 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1825 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1826 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1831 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1833 * Removed remote packets
1836 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1837 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1839 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1843 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1845 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1849 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1850 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1852 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1854 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1856 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1857 previously saved state.
1859 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1861 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1863 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1864 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1866 info forks List forks of the user program that
1867 are available to be debugged.
1869 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1870 forks of the user program that are
1871 available to be debugged.
1873 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1874 that are available to be debugged (and
1875 kill the forked process).
1877 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1878 that are available to be debugged (and
1879 allow the process to continue).
1883 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1885 * Improved Windows host support
1887 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1888 native console support, and remote communications using either
1889 network sockets or serial ports.
1891 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1893 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1894 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1895 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1896 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1897 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1898 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1902 The ARM rdi-share module.
1904 The Netware NLM debug server.
1906 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1908 * New native configurations
1910 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1911 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1915 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1917 * New command line options
1919 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1920 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1921 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1922 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1923 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1924 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1925 with the --command (-x) option.
1927 * Deprecated commands removed
1929 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1933 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1934 othernames set arm disassembler
1935 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1936 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1937 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1940 * New BSD user-level threads support
1942 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1943 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1946 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1947 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1948 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1950 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1951 are not yet supported.
1953 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1954 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1956 * REMOVED configurations and files
1958 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1959 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1960 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1962 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1964 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1965 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1968 * VAX floating point support
1970 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1972 * User-defined command support
1974 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1975 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1976 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1978 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1980 * New command line option
1982 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1985 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1987 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1988 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1989 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1990 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1991 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1993 * Internationalization
1995 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1996 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1997 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2001 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2002 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2003 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2005 * New native configurations
2007 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2011 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2012 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2014 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2016 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2017 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2018 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2021 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2022 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2023 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2033 powerpc bdm protocol
2035 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2036 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2038 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2040 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2041 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2042 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2043 permanently REMOVED.
2052 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2054 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2056 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2057 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2060 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2062 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2063 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2064 IRIX long double values).
2068 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2069 command. This problem has been fixed.
2071 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2073 * Fix for ``many threads''
2075 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2076 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2079 ptrace: No such process.
2080 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2082 This problem has been fixed.
2084 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2086 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2089 * New ``start'' command.
2091 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2093 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2095 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2096 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2097 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2099 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2100 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2101 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2102 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2103 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2104 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2105 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2106 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2107 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2109 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2111 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2112 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2113 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2114 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2115 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2117 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2118 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2119 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2121 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2123 * New native configurations
2125 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2126 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2127 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2128 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2129 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2130 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2131 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2133 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2135 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2136 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2137 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2138 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2139 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2140 work, was also included.
2142 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2143 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2153 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2154 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2156 * REMOVED configurations and files
2158 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2159 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2160 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2161 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2162 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2163 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2164 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2165 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2166 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2167 sonymips mips-sony-*
2168 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2170 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2172 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2174 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2175 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2176 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2177 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2180 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2182 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2183 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2184 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2185 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2186 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2187 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2190 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2192 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2194 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2195 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2196 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2198 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2200 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2201 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2203 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2205 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2206 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2207 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2209 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2211 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2212 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2214 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2216 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2217 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2218 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2220 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2222 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2223 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2224 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2226 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2228 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2230 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2231 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2233 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2235 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2236 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2237 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2238 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2240 * Revised SPARC target
2242 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2243 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2244 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2245 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2246 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2250 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2251 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2252 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2255 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2257 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2258 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2261 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2263 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2264 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2265 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2266 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2267 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2268 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2269 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2270 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2271 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2273 * New native configurations
2275 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2276 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2277 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2278 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2279 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2281 * New debugging protocols
2283 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2285 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2287 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2288 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2289 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2291 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2293 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2294 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2295 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2296 permanently REMOVED.
2298 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2299 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2300 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2301 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2302 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2303 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2304 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2305 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2306 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2307 sonymips mips-sony-*
2308 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2310 * REMOVED configurations and files
2312 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2313 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2314 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2315 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2316 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2317 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2318 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2319 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2320 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2321 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2322 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2323 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2324 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2325 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2326 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2327 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2328 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2330 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2334 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2335 integrated into GDB.
2337 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2339 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2340 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2341 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2344 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2345 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2346 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2350 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2351 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2352 remote protocol documentation for details.
2354 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2356 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2357 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2358 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2361 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2363 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2364 per-thread variables.
2366 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2368 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2369 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2371 * Separate debug info.
2373 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2374 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2375 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2376 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2377 and optional debug files.
2379 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2381 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2382 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2385 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2386 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2390 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2391 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2392 considered "useable".
2394 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2396 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2397 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2400 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2402 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2403 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2405 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2407 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2408 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2411 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2413 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2414 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2418 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2419 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2420 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2421 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2422 data, for more informative profiling results.
2424 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2426 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2427 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2428 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2430 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2433 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2434 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2435 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2436 in a subsequent -var-update.
2438 * New native configurations.
2440 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2442 * Multi-arched targets.
2444 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2445 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2447 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2449 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2450 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2451 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2452 permanently REMOVED.
2454 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2455 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2456 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2457 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2458 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2459 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2460 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2461 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2462 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2463 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2464 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2465 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2467 * REMOVED configurations and files
2470 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2471 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2472 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2473 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2474 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2475 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2477 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2478 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2479 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2480 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2481 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2482 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2484 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2486 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2487 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2488 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2489 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2490 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2492 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2494 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2496 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2497 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2498 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2499 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2500 shared libs like mad''.
2502 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2504 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2505 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2506 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2507 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2509 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2511 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2512 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2515 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2516 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2518 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2519 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2521 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2522 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2523 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2524 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2526 * Multi-arched targets.
2528 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2529 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2531 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2532 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2533 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2537 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2540 * New native configurations
2542 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2543 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2544 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2545 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2547 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2549 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2550 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2551 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2552 permanently REMOVED.
2554 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2555 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2556 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2557 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2558 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2559 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2560 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2561 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2562 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2563 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2565 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2566 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2568 * OBSOLETE languages
2570 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2572 * REMOVED configurations and files
2574 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2575 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2576 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2577 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2578 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2580 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2582 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2584 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2585 commands. The default is 1024.
2587 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2589 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2591 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2593 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2594 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2595 from a file into memory (restore).
2597 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2599 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2600 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2601 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2603 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2611 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2612 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2613 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2615 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2616 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2617 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2619 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2620 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2621 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2623 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2624 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2625 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2627 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2629 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2631 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2632 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2633 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2634 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2635 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2636 (notably embedded) targets.
2638 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2640 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2641 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2642 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2643 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2645 * New command line option
2647 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2649 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2651 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2652 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2653 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2654 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2655 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2656 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2657 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2658 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2659 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2660 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2662 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2664 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2665 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2667 * New native configurations
2669 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2670 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2671 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2672 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2676 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2678 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2680 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2681 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2682 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2683 permanently REMOVED.
2685 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2686 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2687 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2688 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2689 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2691 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2693 * REMOVED configurations and files
2695 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2697 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2698 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2699 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2700 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2701 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2702 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2703 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2704 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2705 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2706 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2707 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2709 * Changes to command line processing
2711 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2712 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2714 * Changes to key bindings
2716 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2718 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2720 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2722 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2725 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2727 Numerous documentation fixes.
2729 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2731 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2733 * New native configurations
2735 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2736 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2737 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2738 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2739 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2740 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2744 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2746 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2748 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2750 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2751 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2752 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2753 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2754 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2756 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2757 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2758 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2759 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2760 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2761 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2762 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2763 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2765 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2766 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2768 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2769 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2770 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2771 permanently REMOVED.
2773 * REMOVED configurations and files
2775 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2776 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2778 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2782 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2784 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2785 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2790 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2792 * The MI enabled by default.
2794 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2795 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2796 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2797 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2798 which is now deprecated.
2800 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2802 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2803 main features are supported:
2805 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2807 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2810 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2812 - a Pascal expression parser.
2814 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2816 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2818 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2820 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2821 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2823 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2825 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2827 * Changes in completion.
2829 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2830 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2831 users expect at the shell prompt.
2833 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2834 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2835 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2836 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2837 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2838 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2839 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2841 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2843 * New platform-independent commands:
2845 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2846 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2847 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2849 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2851 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2852 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2853 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2855 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2857 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2858 multi-threaded programs though.
2860 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2862 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2864 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2865 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2868 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2870 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2871 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2872 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2873 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2874 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2877 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2878 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2879 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2881 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2883 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2884 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2886 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2887 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2890 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2891 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2892 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2893 a given linear address.
2895 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2896 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2897 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2899 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2901 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2903 * Changes in documentation.
2905 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2906 Documentation License.
2908 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2911 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2913 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2916 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2917 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2918 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2920 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2922 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2923 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2924 contents of this file.
2928 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2930 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2932 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2934 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2935 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2936 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2937 greater level of detail.
2939 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2941 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2942 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2943 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2946 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2948 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2949 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2950 machines ``out of the box''.
2952 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2953 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2954 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2955 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2956 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2958 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2959 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2960 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2961 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2962 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2964 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2965 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2968 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2971 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2972 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2973 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2974 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2976 * New native configurations
2978 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2979 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2983 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2984 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2985 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2986 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2988 * OBSOLETE configurations
2990 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2991 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2993 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2996 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2997 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2998 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2999 be permanently REMOVED.
3001 * Gould support removed
3003 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3005 * New features for SVR4
3007 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3008 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3009 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3011 * Many C++ enhancements
3013 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3014 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3016 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3018 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3019 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3020 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3021 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3023 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3024 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3026 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3028 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3029 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3030 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3032 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3033 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3035 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3037 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3038 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3039 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3041 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3043 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3044 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3045 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3047 * ``apropos'' command added.
3049 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3050 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3051 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3055 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3056 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3057 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3058 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3059 enabled by configuring with:
3061 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3063 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3065 * New native configurations
3067 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3068 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3069 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3073 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3074 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3075 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3077 * OBSOLETE configurations
3079 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3081 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3082 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3083 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3084 be permanently REMOVED.
3088 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3089 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3090 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3091 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3092 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3093 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3094 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3099 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3101 * set extension-language
3103 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3104 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3105 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3106 set extension-language .c c++
3107 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3108 and their associated languages.
3110 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3112 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3113 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3114 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3118 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3119 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3121 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3122 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3124 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3125 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3126 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3127 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3128 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3129 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3130 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3131 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3133 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3134 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3135 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3136 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3140 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3141 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3142 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3143 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3144 for xdb and dbx commands.
3148 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3149 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3150 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3152 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3153 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3154 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3156 * Debugging across forks
3158 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3163 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3164 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3165 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3167 * GDB remote protocol additions
3169 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3170 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3171 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3172 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3174 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3175 full 64-bit address. The command
3177 set remoteaddresssize 32
3179 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3180 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3183 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3184 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3186 maint packet heythere
3188 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3189 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3192 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3193 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3194 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3196 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3198 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3199 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3200 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3202 * mask-address variable for Mips
3204 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3205 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3206 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3208 * Higher serial baud rates
3210 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3211 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3212 to achieve all of these rates.)
3216 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3217 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3220 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3222 * New native configurations
3224 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3225 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3226 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3227 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3228 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3229 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3230 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3234 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3235 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3236 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3237 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3238 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3239 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3240 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3241 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3242 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3243 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3244 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3246 * New debugging protocols
3248 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3249 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3250 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3251 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3252 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3253 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3257 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3258 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3263 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3264 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3266 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3268 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3269 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3270 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3272 * Live range splitting
3274 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3275 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3276 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3280 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3281 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3285 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3286 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3287 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3292 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3297 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3298 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3299 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3300 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3301 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3302 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3306 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3307 the symbol at the specified address.
3311 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3312 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3313 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3314 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3315 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3319 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3320 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3321 of most MIPS variants.
3325 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3326 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3327 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3331 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3332 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3333 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3334 the possible architectures.
3336 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3338 * New native configurations
3340 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3341 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3342 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3343 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3344 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3345 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3349 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3350 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3351 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3352 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3353 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3355 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3359 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3360 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3361 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3362 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3363 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3367 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3369 * Windows 95/NT native
3371 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3372 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3373 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3374 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3375 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3377 * dont-repeat command
3379 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3380 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3381 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3382 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3384 * Send break instead of ^C
3386 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3387 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3388 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3390 * Remote protocol timeout
3392 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3393 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3394 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3396 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3398 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3399 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3400 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3401 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3402 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3404 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3405 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3406 automatically on hpux10.
3408 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3410 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3412 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3414 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3415 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3416 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3417 every character. The default value is 1050.
3419 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3421 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3422 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3423 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3424 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3425 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3426 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3428 * Speedups for remote debugging
3430 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3431 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3432 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3434 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3436 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3437 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3439 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3441 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3443 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3444 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3446 * Remote targets use caching
3448 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3449 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3450 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3451 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3452 off' turns the the data cache off.
3454 * Remote targets may have threads
3456 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3457 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3458 gdb/remote.c for details.
3462 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3463 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3464 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3465 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3466 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3467 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3468 sequence is something like
3470 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3472 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3476 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3477 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3478 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3479 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3480 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3481 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3482 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3483 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3487 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3488 but does simplify configuration and building.
3492 GDB now supports hpux10.
3494 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3496 * New native configurations
3498 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3499 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3500 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3501 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3505 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3506 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3507 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3508 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3511 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3513 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3514 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3515 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3516 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3517 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3519 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3521 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3522 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3525 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3527 To execute the command use:
3530 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3531 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3532 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3534 * New `if' and `while' commands
3536 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3537 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3538 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3539 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3540 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3541 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3542 if the expression is zero.
3544 * Fortran source language mode
3546 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3547 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3548 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3549 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3552 * Better HPUX support
3554 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3555 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3556 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3557 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3558 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3564 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3565 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3571 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3572 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3575 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3576 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3578 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3580 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3581 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3582 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3583 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3584 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3585 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3587 * New DOS host serial code
3589 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3590 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3593 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3595 * New "complete" command
3597 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3598 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3600 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3602 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3603 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3605 * Breakpoint hit counts
3607 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3608 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3609 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3610 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3611 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3614 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3616 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3617 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3618 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3620 * Shared library breakpoints
3622 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3623 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3625 * Hardware watchpoints
3627 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3628 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3630 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3634 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3635 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3637 * Improved Irix 5 support
3639 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3641 * Improved HPPA support
3643 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3645 * New native configurations
3647 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3648 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3649 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3650 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3654 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3655 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3658 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3660 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3661 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3665 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3666 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3668 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3670 * Irix 5 is now supported
3674 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3675 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3676 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3677 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3678 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3681 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3683 * User visible changes:
3687 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3688 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3689 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3690 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3691 debugging info for the mips target).
3693 * DEC Alpha native support
3695 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3696 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3697 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3698 Alpha-specific notes.
3700 * Preliminary thread implementation
3702 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3704 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3706 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3707 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3710 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3712 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3713 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3714 call methods, ...etc.
3716 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3718 * User visible changes:
3720 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3721 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3722 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3723 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3725 Filename completion now works.
3727 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3728 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3729 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3731 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3732 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3733 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3734 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3735 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3739 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3740 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3743 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3747 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3748 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3749 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3753 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3754 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3755 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3756 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3757 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3761 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3762 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3763 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3765 * New targets supported
3767 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3768 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3769 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3770 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3771 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3773 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3774 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3775 GO32 memory extender.
3777 * New remote protocols
3779 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3781 * New source languages supported
3783 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3784 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3785 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3788 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3790 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3792 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3793 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3794 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3795 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3796 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3797 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3799 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3801 * Faster and better demangling
3803 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3804 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3805 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3806 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3807 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3808 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3811 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3812 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3813 compiler does not actually implement.
3815 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3817 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3818 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3819 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3820 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3821 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3822 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3825 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3826 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3828 * Improved configure script
3830 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3831 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3832 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3833 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3835 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3836 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3837 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3838 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3839 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3840 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3842 * Documentation improvements
3844 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3845 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3846 before submitting changes.
3848 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3849 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3850 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3851 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3852 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3854 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3855 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3856 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3857 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3858 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3859 around this problem.
3863 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3864 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3865 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3868 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3869 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3871 * New native hosts supported
3873 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3874 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3876 * New targets supported
3878 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3880 * New file formats supported
3882 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3883 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3887 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3889 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3890 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3892 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3893 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3894 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3896 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3897 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3899 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3900 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3901 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3904 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3905 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3906 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3907 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3908 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3910 * Internal improvements
3912 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3913 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3915 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3916 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3917 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3918 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3919 shared code that handles any of them.
3921 * New command line options
3923 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3927 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3928 General Public License.
3930 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3932 * Host/native/target split
3934 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3935 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3936 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3937 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3938 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3940 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3941 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3942 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3943 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3944 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3945 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3946 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3948 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3949 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3950 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3952 * New hosts supported
3954 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3955 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3956 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3958 * New targets supported
3960 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3961 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3963 * New native hosts supported
3965 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3966 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3967 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3969 * New file formats supported
3971 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3972 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3973 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3977 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3978 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3979 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3981 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3983 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3984 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3985 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3986 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3990 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3991 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3992 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3994 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3998 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3999 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4002 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4003 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4005 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4006 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4007 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4008 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4009 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4010 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4012 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4013 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4014 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4015 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4019 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4020 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4021 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4022 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4023 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4025 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4026 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4027 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4028 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4032 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4033 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4034 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4035 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4036 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4037 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4038 each instruction being stepped through.
4040 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4041 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4043 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4044 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4045 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4046 processor with a serial port.
4050 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4051 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4052 supported, and what files each one uses.
4056 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4057 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4058 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4059 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4061 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4062 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4063 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4064 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4068 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4069 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4070 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4071 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4072 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4073 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4075 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4078 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4080 * Better support for C++ function names
4082 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4083 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4084 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4085 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4086 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4088 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4089 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4090 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4091 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4092 for the list of formats.
4094 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4096 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4097 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4098 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4099 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4100 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4101 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4104 * New 'maintenance' command
4106 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4107 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4108 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4110 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4111 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4112 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4113 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4114 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4115 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4117 The following commands are new:
4119 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4120 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4121 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4123 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4125 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4126 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4127 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4128 read after argv processing.
4130 * New hosts supported
4132 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4134 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4136 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4137 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4138 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4139 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4140 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4143 * New targets supported
4145 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4147 * More smarts about finding #include files
4149 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4150 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4151 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4152 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4153 the one that contains your sources.
4155 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4156 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4157 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4159 * Interesting infernals change
4161 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4162 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4163 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4164 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4166 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4168 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4169 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4170 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4172 See the ChangeLog for details.
4174 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4176 * New machines supported (host and target)
4178 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4180 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4182 * New malloc package
4184 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4185 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4186 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4187 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4188 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4189 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4193 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4194 'help info proc' for details.
4196 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4198 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4199 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4202 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4204 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4205 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4206 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4207 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4208 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4209 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4211 * Cross byte order fixes
4213 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4214 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4216 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4218 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4219 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4220 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4221 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4222 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4223 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4224 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4225 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4226 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4227 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4229 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4230 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4231 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4232 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4234 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4235 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4236 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4239 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4241 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4242 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4243 shared across multiple host platforms.
4245 * longjmp() handling
4247 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4248 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4249 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4250 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4254 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4255 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4260 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4261 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4262 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4264 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4266 * New machines supported (host and target)
4268 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4270 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4271 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4273 * New machines supported (target)
4275 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4279 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4280 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4281 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4283 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4284 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4285 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4286 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4287 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4290 * New features for SVR4
4292 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4293 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4294 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4296 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4297 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4298 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4300 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4301 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4303 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4305 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4306 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4307 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4308 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4309 same code linked statically.
4313 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4314 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4315 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4316 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4317 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4318 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4322 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4323 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4324 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4327 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4329 * New machines supported (host and target)
4331 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4332 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4333 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4335 * Almost SCO Unix support
4337 We had hoped to support:
4338 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4339 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4340 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4341 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4343 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4345 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4346 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4347 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4348 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4353 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4354 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4355 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4359 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4360 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4361 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4363 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4365 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4366 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4367 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4369 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4370 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4371 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4372 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4375 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4376 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4377 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4378 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4381 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4382 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4385 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4386 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4387 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4390 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4392 * Improved configuration
4394 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4395 Porting BFD is simpler.
4399 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4400 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4401 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4402 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4406 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4408 * New host supported (not target)
4410 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4413 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4415 * Multiple source language support
4417 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4418 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4419 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4420 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4421 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4422 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4426 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4427 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4428 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4429 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4431 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4432 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4433 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4435 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4436 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4440 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4441 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4442 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4443 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4446 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4448 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4449 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4450 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4451 examining core files.
4455 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4458 * New machines supported (host and target)
4460 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4461 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4462 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4464 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4466 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4468 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4470 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4471 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4472 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4474 * New remote interfaces
4480 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4484 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4486 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4487 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4488 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4489 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4490 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4491 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4492 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4493 stub on the target system.
4495 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4497 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4498 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4499 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4501 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4502 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4505 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4507 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4508 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4510 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4511 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4512 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4514 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4515 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4516 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4517 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4519 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4520 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4521 it is already running. Default is ON.
4523 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4524 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4525 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4526 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4529 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4530 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4531 or the value of the environment variable
4534 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4535 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4538 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4539 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4540 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4542 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4543 history expansion will be performed on
4544 command line input. The default is OFF.
4546 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4547 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4548 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4550 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4551 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4552 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4555 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4556 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4557 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4560 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4561 ``set width'' instead.
4563 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4564 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4565 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4566 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4568 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4571 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4574 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4577 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4580 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4582 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4583 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4584 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4588 * Support for Shared Libraries
4590 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4591 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4592 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4593 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4594 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4595 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4596 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4597 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4599 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4600 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4601 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4603 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4608 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4609 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4610 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4611 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4612 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4613 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4615 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4617 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4619 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4620 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4621 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4624 * C++ multiple inheritance
4626 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4629 * C++ exception handling
4631 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4632 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4633 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4636 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4637 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4638 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4640 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4641 current stack frame.
4644 * Minor command changes
4646 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4647 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4648 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4650 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4651 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4652 frames without printing.
4654 * New directory command
4656 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4657 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4658 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4659 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4660 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4662 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4664 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4667 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4668 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4669 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4670 where the program that you are debugging will run.