1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.1:
6 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
8 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
11 * New ``start'' command.
13 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
15 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
17 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
18 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
19 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
21 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
22 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
23 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
24 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
25 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
26 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
27 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
28 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
29 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
31 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
33 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
34 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
35 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
36 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
37 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
39 These fixes were tested on i386 GNU/Linux systems that include a 2.4
42 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
44 * New native configurations
46 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
47 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
48 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
49 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
50 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
51 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
52 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
54 * REMOVED configurations and files
56 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
57 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
58 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
59 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
60 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
61 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
62 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
63 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
64 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
66 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
68 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
70 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
72 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
73 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
74 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
75 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
78 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
80 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
81 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
82 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
83 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
84 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
85 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
88 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
90 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
92 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
93 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
94 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
96 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
98 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
99 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
101 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
103 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
104 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
105 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
107 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
109 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
110 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
112 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
114 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
115 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
116 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
118 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
120 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
121 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
122 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
124 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
126 * Removed --with-mmalloc
128 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
129 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
131 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
133 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
134 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
135 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
136 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
138 * Revised SPARC target
140 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
141 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
142 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
143 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
144 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
148 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
149 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
150 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
153 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
155 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
156 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
159 * C++ nested types and namespaces
161 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
162 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
163 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
164 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
165 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
166 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
167 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
168 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
169 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
171 * New native configurations
173 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
174 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
175 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
176 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
177 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
179 * New debugging protocols
181 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
183 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
185 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
186 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
187 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
189 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
191 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
192 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
193 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
196 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
197 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
198 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
199 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
200 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
201 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
202 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
203 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
204 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
206 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
208 * REMOVED configurations and files
210 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
211 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
212 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
213 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
214 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
215 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
216 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
217 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
218 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
219 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
220 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
221 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
222 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
223 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
224 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
225 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
226 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
228 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
232 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
235 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
237 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
238 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
239 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
242 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
243 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
248 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
249 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
250 remote protocol documentation for details.
252 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
254 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
255 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
256 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
259 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
261 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
262 per-thread variables.
264 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
266 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
267 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
269 * Separate debug info.
271 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
272 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
273 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
274 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
275 and optional debug files.
277 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
279 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
280 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
283 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
284 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
288 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
289 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
290 considered "useable".
292 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
294 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
295 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
298 * GDB supports logging output to a file
300 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
301 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
303 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
305 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
306 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
309 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
311 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
312 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
316 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
317 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
318 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
319 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
320 data, for more informative profiling results.
322 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
324 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
325 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
326 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
328 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
331 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
332 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
333 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
334 in a subsequent -var-update.
336 * New native configurations.
338 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
340 * Multi-arched targets.
342 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
343 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
345 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
347 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
348 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
349 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
352 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
353 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
354 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
355 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
356 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
357 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
358 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
359 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
360 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
361 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
362 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
363 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
365 * REMOVED configurations and files
368 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
369 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
370 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
371 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
372 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
373 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
375 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
376 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
377 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
378 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
379 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
380 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
382 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
384 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
385 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
386 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
387 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
388 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
390 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
392 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
394 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
395 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
396 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
397 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
398 shared libs like mad''.
400 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
402 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
403 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
404 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
405 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
407 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
409 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
410 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
413 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
414 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
416 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
417 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
419 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
420 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
421 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
422 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
424 * Multi-arched targets.
426 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
427 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
429 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
430 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
431 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
435 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
438 * New native configurations
440 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
441 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
442 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
443 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
445 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
447 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
448 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
449 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
452 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
453 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
454 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
455 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
456 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
457 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
458 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
459 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
460 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
461 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
463 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
464 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
468 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
470 * REMOVED configurations and files
472 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
473 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
474 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
475 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
476 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
478 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
480 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
482 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
483 commands. The default is 1024.
485 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
487 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
489 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
491 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
492 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
493 from a file into memory (restore).
495 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
497 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
498 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
499 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
501 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
509 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
510 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
511 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
513 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
514 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
515 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
517 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
518 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
519 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
521 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
522 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
523 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
525 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
527 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
529 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
530 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
531 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
532 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
533 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
534 (notably embedded) targets.
536 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
538 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
539 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
540 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
541 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
543 * New command line option
545 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
547 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
549 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
550 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
551 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
552 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
553 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
554 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
555 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
556 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
557 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
558 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
560 * Changes in ARM configurations.
562 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
563 configuration is fully multi-arch.
565 * New native configurations
567 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
568 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
569 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
570 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
574 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
576 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
578 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
579 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
580 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
583 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
584 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
585 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
586 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
587 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
589 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
591 * REMOVED configurations and files
593 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
595 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
596 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
597 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
598 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
599 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
600 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
601 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
602 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
603 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
604 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
605 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
607 * Changes to command line processing
609 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
610 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
612 * Changes to key bindings
614 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
616 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
618 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
620 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
623 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
625 Numerous documentation fixes.
627 Numerous testsuite fixes.
629 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
631 * New native configurations
633 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
634 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
635 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
636 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
638 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
642 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
644 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
646 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
648 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
649 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
650 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
651 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
652 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
654 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
655 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
656 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
657 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
658 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
659 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
660 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
661 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
663 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
664 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
666 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
667 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
668 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
671 * REMOVED configurations and files
673 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
674 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
676 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
680 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
682 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
683 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
688 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
690 * The MI enabled by default.
692 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
693 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
694 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
695 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
696 which is now deprecated.
698 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
700 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
701 main features are supported:
703 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
705 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
708 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
710 - a Pascal expression parser.
712 However, some important features are not yet supported.
714 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
716 - there are some problems with boolean types;
718 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
719 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
721 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
723 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
725 * Changes in completion.
727 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
728 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
729 users expect at the shell prompt.
731 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
732 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
733 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
734 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
735 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
736 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
737 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
739 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
741 * New platform-independent commands:
743 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
744 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
745 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
747 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
749 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
750 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
751 many threads as your system allows you to have.
753 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
755 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
756 multi-threaded programs though.
758 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
760 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
762 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
763 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
766 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
768 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
769 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
770 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
771 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
772 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
775 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
776 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
777 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
779 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
781 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
782 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
784 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
785 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
788 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
789 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
790 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
791 a given linear address.
793 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
794 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
795 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
797 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
799 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
801 * Changes in documentation.
803 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
804 Documentation License.
806 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
809 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
811 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
814 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
815 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
816 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
818 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
820 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
821 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
822 contents of this file.
826 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
828 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
830 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
832 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
833 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
834 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
835 greater level of detail.
837 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
839 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
840 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
841 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
844 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
846 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
847 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
848 machines ``out of the box''.
850 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
851 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
852 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
853 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
854 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
856 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
857 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
858 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
859 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
860 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
862 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
863 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
866 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
869 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
870 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
871 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
872 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
874 * New native configurations
876 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
877 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
881 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
882 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
883 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
884 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
886 * OBSOLETE configurations
888 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
889 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
891 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
894 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
895 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
896 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
897 be permanently REMOVED.
899 * Gould support removed
901 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
903 * New features for SVR4
905 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
906 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
907 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
909 * Many C++ enhancements
911 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
912 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
914 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
916 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
917 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
918 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
919 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
921 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
922 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
924 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
926 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
927 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
928 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
930 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
931 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
933 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
935 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
936 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
937 include ``set remote P-packet''.
939 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
941 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
942 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
943 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
945 * ``apropos'' command added.
947 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
948 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
949 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
953 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
954 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
955 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
956 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
957 enabled by configuring with:
959 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
961 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
963 * New native configurations
965 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
966 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
967 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
971 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
972 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
973 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
975 * OBSOLETE configurations
977 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
979 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
980 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
981 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
982 be permanently REMOVED.
986 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
987 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
988 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
989 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
990 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
991 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
992 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
997 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
999 * set extension-language
1001 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1002 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1003 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1004 set extension-language .c c++
1005 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1006 and their associated languages.
1008 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1010 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1011 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1012 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1016 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1017 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1019 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1020 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1022 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1023 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1024 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1025 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1026 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1027 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1028 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1029 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1031 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1032 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1033 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1034 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1038 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1039 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1040 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1041 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1042 for xdb and dbx commands.
1046 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1047 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1048 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1050 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1051 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1052 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1054 * Debugging across forks
1056 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1061 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1062 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1063 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1065 * GDB remote protocol additions
1067 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1068 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1069 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1070 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1072 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1073 full 64-bit address. The command
1075 set remoteaddresssize 32
1077 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1078 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1081 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1082 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1084 maint packet heythere
1086 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1087 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1090 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1091 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1092 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1094 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1096 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1097 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1098 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1100 * mask-address variable for Mips
1102 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1103 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1104 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1106 * Higher serial baud rates
1108 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1109 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1110 to achieve all of these rates.)
1114 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1115 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1118 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1120 * New native configurations
1122 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1123 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1124 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1125 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1126 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1127 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1128 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1132 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1133 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1134 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1135 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1136 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1137 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1138 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1139 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1140 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1141 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1142 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1144 * New debugging protocols
1146 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1147 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1148 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1149 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1150 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1151 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1155 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1156 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1161 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1162 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1164 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1166 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1167 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1168 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1170 * Live range splitting
1172 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1173 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1174 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1178 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1179 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1183 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1184 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1185 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1190 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1195 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1196 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1197 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1198 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1199 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1200 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1204 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1205 the symbol at the specified address.
1209 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1210 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1211 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1212 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1213 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1217 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1218 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1219 of most MIPS variants.
1223 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1224 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1225 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1229 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1230 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1231 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1232 the possible architectures.
1234 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1236 * New native configurations
1238 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1239 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1240 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1241 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1242 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1243 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1247 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1248 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1249 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1250 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1251 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1253 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1257 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1258 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1259 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1260 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1261 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1265 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1267 * Windows 95/NT native
1269 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1270 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1271 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1272 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1273 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1275 * dont-repeat command
1277 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1278 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1279 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1280 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1282 * Send break instead of ^C
1284 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1285 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1286 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1288 * Remote protocol timeout
1290 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1291 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1292 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1294 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1296 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1297 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1298 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1299 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1300 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1302 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1303 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1304 automatically on hpux10.
1306 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1308 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1310 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1312 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1313 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1314 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1315 every character. The default value is 1050.
1317 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1319 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1320 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1321 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1322 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1323 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1324 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1326 * Speedups for remote debugging
1328 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1329 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1330 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1332 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1334 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1335 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1337 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1339 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1341 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1342 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1344 * Remote targets use caching
1346 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1347 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1348 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1349 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1350 off' turns the the data cache off.
1352 * Remote targets may have threads
1354 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1355 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1356 gdb/remote.c for details.
1360 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1361 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1362 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1363 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1364 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1365 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1366 sequence is something like
1368 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1370 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1374 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1375 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1376 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1377 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1378 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1379 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1380 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1381 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1385 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1386 but does simplify configuration and building.
1390 GDB now supports hpux10.
1392 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1394 * New native configurations
1396 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1397 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1398 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1399 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1403 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1404 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1405 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1406 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1409 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1411 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1412 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1413 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1414 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1415 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1417 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1419 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1420 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1423 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1425 To execute the command use:
1428 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1429 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1430 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1432 * New `if' and `while' commands
1434 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1435 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1436 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1437 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1438 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1439 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1440 if the expression is zero.
1442 * Fortran source language mode
1444 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1445 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1446 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1447 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1450 * Better HPUX support
1452 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1453 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1454 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1455 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1456 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1462 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1463 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1469 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1470 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1473 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1474 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1476 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1478 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1479 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1480 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1481 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1482 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1483 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1485 * New DOS host serial code
1487 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1488 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1491 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1493 * New "complete" command
1495 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1496 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1498 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1500 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1501 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1503 * Breakpoint hit counts
1505 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1506 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1507 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1508 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1509 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1512 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1514 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1515 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1516 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1518 * Shared library breakpoints
1520 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1521 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1523 * Hardware watchpoints
1525 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1526 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1528 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1532 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1533 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1535 * Improved Irix 5 support
1537 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1539 * Improved HPPA support
1541 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1543 * New native configurations
1545 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1546 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1547 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1548 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1552 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1553 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1556 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1558 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1559 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1563 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1564 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1566 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1568 * Irix 5 is now supported
1572 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1573 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1574 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1575 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1576 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1579 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1581 * User visible changes:
1585 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1586 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1587 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1588 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1589 debugging info for the mips target).
1591 * DEC Alpha native support
1593 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1594 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1595 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1596 Alpha-specific notes.
1598 * Preliminary thread implementation
1600 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1602 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1604 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1605 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1608 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1610 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1611 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1612 call methods, ...etc.
1614 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1616 * User visible changes:
1618 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1619 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1620 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1621 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1623 Filename completion now works.
1625 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1626 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1627 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1629 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1630 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1631 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1632 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1633 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1637 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1638 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1641 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1645 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1646 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1647 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1651 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1652 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1653 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1654 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1655 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1659 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1660 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1661 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1663 * New targets supported
1665 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1666 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1667 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1668 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1669 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1671 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1672 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1673 GO32 memory extender.
1675 * New remote protocols
1677 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1679 * New source languages supported
1681 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1682 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1683 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1686 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1688 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1690 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1691 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1692 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1693 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1694 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1695 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1697 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1699 * Faster and better demangling
1701 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1702 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1703 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1704 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1705 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1706 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1709 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1710 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1711 compiler does not actually implement.
1713 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1715 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1716 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1717 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1718 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1719 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1720 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1723 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1724 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1726 * Improved configure script
1728 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1729 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1730 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1731 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1733 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1734 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1735 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1736 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1737 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1738 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1740 * Documentation improvements
1742 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1743 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1744 before submitting changes.
1746 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1747 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1748 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1749 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1750 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1752 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1753 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1754 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1755 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1756 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1757 around this problem.
1761 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1762 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1763 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1766 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1767 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1769 * New native hosts supported
1771 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1772 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1774 * New targets supported
1776 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1778 * New file formats supported
1780 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1781 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1785 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1787 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1788 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1790 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1791 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1792 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1794 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1795 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1797 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1798 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1799 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1802 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1803 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1804 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1805 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1806 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1808 * Internal improvements
1810 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1811 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1813 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1814 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1815 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1816 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1817 shared code that handles any of them.
1819 * New command line options
1821 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1825 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1826 General Public License.
1828 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1830 * Host/native/target split
1832 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1833 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1834 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1835 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1836 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1838 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1839 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1840 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1841 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1842 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1843 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1844 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1846 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1847 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1848 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1850 * New hosts supported
1852 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1853 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1854 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1856 * New targets supported
1858 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1859 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1861 * New native hosts supported
1863 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1864 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1865 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1867 * New file formats supported
1869 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1870 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1871 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1875 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1876 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1877 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1879 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1881 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1882 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1883 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1884 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1888 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1889 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1890 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1892 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1896 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1897 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1900 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1901 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1903 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1904 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1905 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1906 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1907 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1908 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1910 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1911 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1912 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1913 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1917 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1918 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1919 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1920 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1921 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1923 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1924 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1925 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1926 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1930 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1931 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1932 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1933 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1934 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1935 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1936 each instruction being stepped through.
1938 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1939 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1941 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1942 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1943 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1944 processor with a serial port.
1948 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1949 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1950 supported, and what files each one uses.
1954 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1955 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1956 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1957 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1959 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1960 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1961 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1962 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1966 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1967 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1968 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1969 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1970 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1971 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1973 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1976 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1978 * Better support for C++ function names
1980 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1981 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1982 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1983 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1984 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1986 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1987 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1988 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1989 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1990 for the list of formats.
1992 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1994 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1995 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1996 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1997 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1998 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1999 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2002 * New 'maintenance' command
2004 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2005 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2006 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2008 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2009 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2010 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2011 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2012 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2013 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2015 The following commands are new:
2017 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2018 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2019 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2021 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2023 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2024 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2025 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2026 read after argv processing.
2028 * New hosts supported
2030 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2032 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2034 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2035 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2036 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2037 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2038 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2041 * New targets supported
2043 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2045 * More smarts about finding #include files
2047 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2048 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2049 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2050 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2051 the one that contains your sources.
2053 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2054 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2055 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2057 * Interesting infernals change
2059 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2060 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2061 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2062 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2064 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2066 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2067 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2068 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2070 See the ChangeLog for details.
2072 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2074 * New machines supported (host and target)
2076 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2078 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2080 * New malloc package
2082 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2083 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2084 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2085 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2086 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2087 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2091 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2092 'help info proc' for details.
2094 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2096 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2097 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2100 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2102 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2103 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2104 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2105 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2106 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2107 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2109 * Cross byte order fixes
2111 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2112 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2114 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2116 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2117 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2118 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2119 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2120 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2121 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2122 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2123 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2124 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2125 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2127 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2128 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2129 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2130 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2132 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2133 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2134 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2137 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2139 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2140 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2141 shared across multiple host platforms.
2143 * longjmp() handling
2145 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2146 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2147 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2148 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2152 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2153 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2158 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2159 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2160 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2162 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2164 * New machines supported (host and target)
2166 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2168 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2169 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2171 * New machines supported (target)
2173 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2177 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2178 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2179 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2181 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2182 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2183 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2184 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2185 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2188 * New features for SVR4
2190 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2191 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2192 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2194 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2195 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2196 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2198 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2199 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2201 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2203 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2204 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2205 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2206 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2207 same code linked statically.
2211 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2212 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2213 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2214 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2215 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2216 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2220 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2221 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2222 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2225 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2227 * New machines supported (host and target)
2229 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2230 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2231 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2233 * Almost SCO Unix support
2235 We had hoped to support:
2236 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2237 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2238 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2239 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2241 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2243 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2244 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2245 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2246 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2251 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2252 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2253 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2257 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2258 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2259 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2261 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2263 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2264 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2265 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2267 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2268 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2269 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2270 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2273 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2274 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2275 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2276 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2279 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2280 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2283 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2284 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2285 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2288 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2290 * Improved configuration
2292 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2293 Porting BFD is simpler.
2297 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2298 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2299 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2300 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2304 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2306 * New host supported (not target)
2308 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2311 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2313 * Multiple source language support
2315 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2316 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2317 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2318 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2319 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2320 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2324 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2325 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2326 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2327 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2329 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2330 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2331 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2333 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2334 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2338 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2339 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2340 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2341 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2344 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2346 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2347 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2348 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2349 examining core files.
2353 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2356 * New machines supported (host and target)
2358 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2359 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2360 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2362 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2364 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2366 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2368 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2369 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2370 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2372 * New remote interfaces
2378 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2382 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2384 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2385 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2386 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2387 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2388 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2389 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2390 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2391 stub on the target system.
2393 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2395 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2396 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2397 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2399 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2400 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2403 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2405 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2406 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2408 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2409 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2410 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2412 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2413 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2414 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2415 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2417 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2418 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2419 it is already running. Default is ON.
2421 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2422 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2423 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2424 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2427 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2428 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2429 or the value of the environment variable
2432 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2433 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2436 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2437 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2438 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2440 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2441 history expansion will be performed on
2442 command line input. The default is OFF.
2444 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2445 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2446 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2448 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2449 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2450 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2453 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2454 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2455 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2458 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2459 ``set width'' instead.
2461 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2462 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2463 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2464 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2466 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2469 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2472 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2475 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2478 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2480 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2481 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2482 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2486 * Support for Shared Libraries
2488 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2489 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2490 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2491 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2492 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2493 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2494 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2495 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2497 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2498 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2499 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2501 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2506 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2507 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2508 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2509 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2510 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2511 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2513 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2515 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2517 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2518 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2519 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2522 * C++ multiple inheritance
2524 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2527 * C++ exception handling
2529 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2530 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2531 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2534 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2535 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2536 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2538 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2539 current stack frame.
2542 * Minor command changes
2544 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2545 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2546 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2548 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2549 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2550 frames without printing.
2552 * New directory command
2554 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2555 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2556 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2557 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2558 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2560 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2562 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2565 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2566 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2567 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2568 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob