1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.0
8 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
13 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
16 * Multi-program debugging.
18 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
19 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
20 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
21 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
22 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
23 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
24 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
25 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
30 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
31 the arguments to be comma-separated.
33 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
35 record save [<FILENAME>]
36 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
37 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
39 record restore <FILENAME>
40 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
41 earlier time, for replay debugging.
43 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
46 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
47 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
53 maint info program-spaces
54 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
56 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
57 show remote interrupt-sequence
58 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
59 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
60 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
61 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
62 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
64 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
65 show remote interrupt-on-connect
66 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
67 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
70 set remotebreak [on | off]
72 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
76 set follow-exec-mode new|same
78 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
79 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
80 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
84 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
86 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
88 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
89 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
90 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
91 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
92 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
94 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
95 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
96 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
97 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
98 for tracepoint actions.
100 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
101 in hex as well as in symbolic form."
103 * Process record and replay
105 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
106 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
107 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
110 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
111 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
112 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
115 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
116 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
119 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
120 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
121 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
122 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
123 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
124 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
125 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
126 the installation instructions for more information.
128 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
129 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
130 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
131 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
133 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
134 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
136 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
137 now complete on file names.
139 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
140 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
141 For instance, consider:
143 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
144 # struct example variable;
147 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
148 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
150 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
151 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
153 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
154 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
157 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
158 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
159 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
161 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
162 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
163 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
164 and simulator targets may also provide them.
169 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
172 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
173 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
174 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
177 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
178 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
181 Obtains additional operating system information
185 Read or write additional signal information.
187 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
189 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
190 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
191 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
193 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
196 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
197 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
199 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
200 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
201 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
203 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
204 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
206 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
208 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
210 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
211 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
213 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
214 list of section offsets.
216 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
217 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
218 have also been fixed.
220 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
221 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
222 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
224 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
227 template<typename T> class C { };
230 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
232 ptype C<char const *>
234 ptype C<const char *>
237 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
239 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
240 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
242 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
243 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
244 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
246 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
247 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
249 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
252 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
253 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
255 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
256 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
261 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
262 available is determined at configure time.
264 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
266 * Ada tasking support
268 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
272 Print the list of Ada tasks.
274 Print detailed information about task number N.
276 Print the task number of the current task.
278 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
280 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
281 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
283 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
285 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
286 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
287 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
288 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
289 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
290 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
293 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
294 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
297 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
298 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
299 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
300 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
303 * Multi-architecture debugging.
305 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
306 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
307 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
308 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
309 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
311 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
312 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
313 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
314 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
315 --enable-targets configure option.
317 * Non-stop mode debugging.
319 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
320 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
321 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
322 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
323 section in the user manual for more information.
325 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
326 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
327 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
328 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
329 extensions on linux targets.
331 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
333 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
334 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
335 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
336 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
337 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
338 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
339 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
340 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
341 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
343 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
345 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
347 maint set python print-stack
348 maint show python print-stack
349 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
352 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
357 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
361 Show operating system information about processes.
364 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
367 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
370 Detach from inferior number NUM.
373 Kill inferior number NUM.
378 show spu stop-on-load
379 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
381 set spu auto-flush-cache
382 show spu auto-flush-cache
383 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
384 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
386 set sh calling-convention
387 show sh calling-convention
388 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
392 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
394 set disassemble-next-line
395 show disassemble-next-line
396 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
399 set remote noack-packet
400 show remote noack-packet
401 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
402 under "New remote packets."
404 set remote query-attached-packet
405 show remote query-attached-packet
406 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
408 set remote read-siginfo-object
409 show remote read-siginfo-object
410 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
413 set remote write-siginfo-object
414 show remote write-siginfo-object
415 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
418 set remote reverse-continue
419 show remote reverse-continue
420 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
422 set remote reverse-step
423 show remote reverse-step
424 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
426 set displaced-stepping
427 show displaced-stepping
428 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
429 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
430 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
434 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
436 maint set internal-error
437 maint show internal-error
438 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
440 maint set internal-warning
441 maint show internal-warning
442 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
447 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
449 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
450 show multiple-symbols
451 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
452 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
453 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
455 set breakpoint always-inserted
456 show breakpoint always-inserted
457 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
458 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
459 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
461 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
462 show arm fallback-mode
463 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
465 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
466 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
467 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
468 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
470 set disable-randomization
471 show disable-randomization
472 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
473 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
474 multiple debugging sessions.
478 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
483 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
484 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
485 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
486 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
488 set target-wide-charset
489 show target-wide-charset
490 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
491 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
493 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
495 set tcp connect-timeout
496 show tcp connect-timeout
497 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
498 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
499 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
501 set libthread-db-search-path
502 show libthread-db-search-path
503 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
506 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
507 show schedule-multiple
508 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
513 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
514 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
515 affecting correctness.
517 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
518 show interactive-mode
519 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
520 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
521 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
522 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
523 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
528 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
529 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
530 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
534 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
535 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
536 alias for the `fork' command.
539 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
540 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
541 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
544 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
545 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
546 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
550 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
551 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
552 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
555 * New native configurations
557 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
559 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
563 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
564 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
565 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
568 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
569 (mingw32ce) debugging.
575 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
577 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
579 * New native configurations
581 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
582 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
586 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
587 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
589 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
591 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
592 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
593 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
594 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
596 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
597 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
599 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
602 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
603 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
604 and in inlined functions.
606 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
607 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
608 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
610 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
612 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
613 registers on PowerPC targets.
615 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
616 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
618 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
619 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
621 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
622 extended-remote mode.
624 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
625 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
626 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
627 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
629 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
630 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
631 target architectures.
633 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
634 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
635 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
636 stored in two consecutive float registers.
638 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
641 * Improved support for debugging Ada
642 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
644 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
645 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
646 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
647 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
649 - Improved command completion in Ada
652 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
657 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
658 show print frame-arguments
659 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
660 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
665 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
672 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
681 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
684 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
688 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
690 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
692 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
693 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
694 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
696 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
697 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
698 -Bsymbolic linker option.
700 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
701 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
704 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
705 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
707 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
708 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
710 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
712 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
713 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
714 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
716 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
717 automatically displayed as character or string data.
719 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
720 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
723 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
724 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
725 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
727 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
730 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
731 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
732 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
734 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
736 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
738 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
739 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
740 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
742 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
743 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
745 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
746 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
747 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
748 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
749 Windows and SymbianOS).
751 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
752 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
754 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
755 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
761 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
762 when debugging using remote targets.
764 set mem inaccessible-by-default
765 show mem inaccessible-by-default
766 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
767 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
768 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
769 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
770 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
772 set breakpoint auto-hw
773 show breakpoint auto-hw
774 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
775 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
776 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
777 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
778 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
779 including "next" and "finish".
782 catch exception unhandled
783 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
786 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
790 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
791 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
792 an alias to "set sysroot".
795 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
796 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
799 * New native configurations
801 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
806 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
807 not query the target for its built-in description.
811 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
812 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
813 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
818 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
819 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
822 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
827 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
828 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
830 qXfer:libraries:read:
831 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
832 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
833 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
834 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
838 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
847 i[34567]86-*-netware*
848 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
849 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
851 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
854 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
855 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
864 * Other removed features
871 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
878 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
883 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
884 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
889 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
890 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
892 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
894 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
895 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
896 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
897 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
901 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
902 in debugging information.
906 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
907 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
909 set mips stack-arg-size
910 set mips saved-gpreg-size
912 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
914 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
919 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
921 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
922 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
923 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
925 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
926 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
929 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
930 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
932 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
933 stub provides the required support.
935 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
936 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
941 unset substitute-path
943 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
944 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
945 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
946 between compilation and debugging.
950 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
951 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
952 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
956 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
958 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
959 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
961 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
966 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
967 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
968 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
969 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
973 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
974 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
976 qXfer:memory-map:read:
977 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
978 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
983 Erase and program a flash memory device.
985 * Removed remote packets
988 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
989 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
991 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
995 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
997 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1001 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1002 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1004 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1006 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1008 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1009 previously saved state.
1011 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1013 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1015 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1016 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1018 info forks List forks of the user program that
1019 are available to be debugged.
1021 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1022 forks of the user program that are
1023 available to be debugged.
1025 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1026 that are available to be debugged (and
1027 kill the forked process).
1029 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1030 that are available to be debugged (and
1031 allow the process to continue).
1035 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1037 * Improved Windows host support
1039 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1040 native console support, and remote communications using either
1041 network sockets or serial ports.
1043 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1045 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1046 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1047 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1048 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1049 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1050 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1054 The ARM rdi-share module.
1056 The Netware NLM debug server.
1058 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1060 * New native configurations
1062 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1063 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1067 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1069 * New command line options
1071 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1072 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1073 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1074 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1075 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1076 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1077 with the --command (-x) option.
1079 * Deprecated commands removed
1081 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1085 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1086 othernames set arm disassembler
1087 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1088 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1089 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1092 * New BSD user-level threads support
1094 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1095 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1098 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1099 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1100 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1102 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1103 are not yet supported.
1105 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1106 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1108 * REMOVED configurations and files
1110 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1111 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1112 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1114 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1116 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1117 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1120 * VAX floating point support
1122 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1124 * User-defined command support
1126 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1127 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1128 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1130 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1132 * New command line option
1134 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1137 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1139 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1140 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1141 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1142 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1143 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1145 * Internationalization
1147 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1148 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1149 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1153 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1154 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1155 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1157 * New native configurations
1159 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1163 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1164 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1166 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1168 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1169 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1170 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1173 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1174 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1175 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1185 powerpc bdm protocol
1187 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1188 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1190 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1192 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1193 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1194 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1195 permanently REMOVED.
1204 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1206 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1208 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1209 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1212 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1214 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1215 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1216 IRIX long double values).
1220 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1221 command. This problem has been fixed.
1223 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1225 * Fix for ``many threads''
1227 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1228 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1231 ptrace: No such process.
1232 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1234 This problem has been fixed.
1236 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1238 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1241 * New ``start'' command.
1243 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1245 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1247 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1248 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1249 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1251 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1252 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1253 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1254 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1255 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1256 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1257 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1258 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1259 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1261 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1263 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1264 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1265 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1266 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1267 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1269 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1270 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1271 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1273 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1275 * New native configurations
1277 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1278 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1279 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1280 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1281 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1282 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1283 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1285 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1287 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1288 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1289 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1290 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1291 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1292 work, was also included.
1294 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1295 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1305 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1306 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1308 * REMOVED configurations and files
1310 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1311 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1312 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1313 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1314 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1315 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1316 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1317 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1318 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1319 sonymips mips-sony-*
1320 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1322 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1324 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1326 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1327 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1328 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1329 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1332 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1334 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1335 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1336 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1337 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1338 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1339 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1342 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1344 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1346 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1347 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1348 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1350 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1352 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1353 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1355 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1357 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1358 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1359 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1361 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1363 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1364 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1366 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1368 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1369 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1370 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1372 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1374 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1375 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1376 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1378 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1380 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1382 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1383 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1385 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1387 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1388 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1389 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1390 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1392 * Revised SPARC target
1394 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1395 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1396 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1397 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1398 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1402 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1403 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1404 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1407 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1409 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1410 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1413 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1415 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1416 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1417 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1418 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1419 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1420 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1421 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1422 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1423 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1425 * New native configurations
1427 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1428 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1429 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1430 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1431 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1433 * New debugging protocols
1435 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1437 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1439 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1440 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1441 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1443 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1445 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1446 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1447 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1448 permanently REMOVED.
1450 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1451 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1452 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1453 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1454 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1455 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1456 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1457 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1458 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1459 sonymips mips-sony-*
1460 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1462 * REMOVED configurations and files
1464 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1465 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1466 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1467 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1468 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1469 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1470 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1471 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1472 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1473 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1474 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1475 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1476 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1477 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1478 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1479 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1480 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1482 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1486 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1487 integrated into GDB.
1489 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1491 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1492 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1493 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1496 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1497 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1498 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1502 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1503 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1504 remote protocol documentation for details.
1506 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1508 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1509 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1510 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1513 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1515 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1516 per-thread variables.
1518 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1520 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1521 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1523 * Separate debug info.
1525 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1526 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1527 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1528 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1529 and optional debug files.
1531 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1533 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1534 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1537 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1538 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1542 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1543 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1544 considered "useable".
1546 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1548 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1549 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1552 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1554 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1555 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1557 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1559 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1560 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1563 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1565 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1566 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1570 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1571 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1572 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1573 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1574 data, for more informative profiling results.
1576 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1578 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1579 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1580 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1582 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1585 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1586 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1587 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1588 in a subsequent -var-update.
1590 * New native configurations.
1592 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1594 * Multi-arched targets.
1596 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1597 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1599 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1601 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1602 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1603 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1604 permanently REMOVED.
1606 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1607 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1608 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1609 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1610 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1611 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1612 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1613 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1614 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1615 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1616 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1617 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1619 * REMOVED configurations and files
1622 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1623 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1624 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1625 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1626 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1627 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1629 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1630 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1631 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1632 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1633 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1634 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1636 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1638 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1639 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1640 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1641 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1642 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1644 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1646 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1648 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1649 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1650 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1651 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1652 shared libs like mad''.
1654 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1656 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1657 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1658 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1659 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1661 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1663 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1664 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1667 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1668 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1670 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1671 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1673 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1674 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1675 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1676 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1678 * Multi-arched targets.
1680 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1681 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1683 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1684 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1685 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1689 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1692 * New native configurations
1694 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1695 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1696 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1697 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1699 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1701 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1702 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1703 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1704 permanently REMOVED.
1706 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1707 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1708 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1709 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1710 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1711 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1712 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1713 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1714 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1715 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1717 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1718 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1720 * OBSOLETE languages
1722 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1724 * REMOVED configurations and files
1726 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1727 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1728 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1729 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1730 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1732 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1734 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1736 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1737 commands. The default is 1024.
1739 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1741 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1743 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1745 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1746 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1747 from a file into memory (restore).
1749 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1751 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1752 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1753 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1755 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1763 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1764 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1765 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1767 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1768 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1769 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1771 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1772 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1773 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1775 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1776 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1777 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1779 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1781 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1783 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1784 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1785 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1786 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1787 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1788 (notably embedded) targets.
1790 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1792 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1793 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1794 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1795 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1797 * New command line option
1799 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1801 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1803 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1804 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1805 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1806 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1807 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1808 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1809 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1810 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1811 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1812 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1814 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1816 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1817 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1819 * New native configurations
1821 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1822 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1823 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1824 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1828 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1830 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1832 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1833 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1834 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1835 permanently REMOVED.
1837 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1838 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1839 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1840 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1841 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1843 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1845 * REMOVED configurations and files
1847 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1849 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1850 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1851 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1852 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1853 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1854 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1855 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1856 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1857 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1858 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1859 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1861 * Changes to command line processing
1863 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1864 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1866 * Changes to key bindings
1868 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1870 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1872 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1874 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1877 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1879 Numerous documentation fixes.
1881 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1883 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1885 * New native configurations
1887 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1888 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1889 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1890 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1891 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1892 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1896 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1898 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1900 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1902 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1903 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1904 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1905 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1906 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1908 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1909 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1910 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1911 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1912 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1913 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1914 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1915 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1917 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1918 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1920 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1921 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1922 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1923 permanently REMOVED.
1925 * REMOVED configurations and files
1927 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1928 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1930 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1934 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1936 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1937 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1942 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1944 * The MI enabled by default.
1946 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1947 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1948 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1949 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1950 which is now deprecated.
1952 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1954 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1955 main features are supported:
1957 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1959 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1962 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1964 - a Pascal expression parser.
1966 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1968 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1970 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1972 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1973 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1975 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1977 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1979 * Changes in completion.
1981 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1982 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1983 users expect at the shell prompt.
1985 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1986 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1987 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1988 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1989 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1990 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1991 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1993 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1995 * New platform-independent commands:
1997 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1998 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1999 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2001 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2003 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2004 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2005 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2007 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2009 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2010 multi-threaded programs though.
2012 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2014 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2016 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2017 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2020 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2022 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2023 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2024 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2025 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2026 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2029 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2030 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2031 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2033 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2035 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2036 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2038 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2039 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2042 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2043 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2044 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2045 a given linear address.
2047 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2048 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2049 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2051 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2053 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2055 * Changes in documentation.
2057 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2058 Documentation License.
2060 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2063 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2065 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2068 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2069 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2070 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2072 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2074 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2075 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2076 contents of this file.
2080 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2082 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2084 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2086 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2087 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2088 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2089 greater level of detail.
2091 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2093 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2094 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2095 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2098 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2100 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2101 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2102 machines ``out of the box''.
2104 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2105 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2106 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2107 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2108 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2110 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2111 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2112 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2113 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2114 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2116 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2117 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2120 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2123 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2124 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2125 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2126 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2128 * New native configurations
2130 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2131 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2135 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2136 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2137 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2138 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2140 * OBSOLETE configurations
2142 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2143 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2145 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2148 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2149 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2150 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2151 be permanently REMOVED.
2153 * Gould support removed
2155 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2157 * New features for SVR4
2159 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2160 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2161 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2163 * Many C++ enhancements
2165 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2166 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2168 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2170 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2171 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2172 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2173 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2175 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2176 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2178 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2180 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2181 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2182 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2184 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2185 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2187 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2189 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2190 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2191 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2193 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2195 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2196 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2197 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2199 * ``apropos'' command added.
2201 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2202 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2203 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2207 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2208 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2209 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2210 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2211 enabled by configuring with:
2213 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2215 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2217 * New native configurations
2219 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2220 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2221 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2225 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2226 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2227 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2229 * OBSOLETE configurations
2231 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2233 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2234 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2235 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2236 be permanently REMOVED.
2240 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2241 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2242 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2243 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2244 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2245 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2246 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2251 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2253 * set extension-language
2255 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2256 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2257 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2258 set extension-language .c c++
2259 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2260 and their associated languages.
2262 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2264 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2265 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2266 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2270 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2271 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2273 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2274 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2276 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2277 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2278 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2279 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2280 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2281 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2282 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2283 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2285 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2286 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2287 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2288 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2292 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2293 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2294 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2295 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2296 for xdb and dbx commands.
2300 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2301 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2302 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2304 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2305 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2306 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2308 * Debugging across forks
2310 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2315 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2316 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2317 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2319 * GDB remote protocol additions
2321 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2322 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2323 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2324 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2326 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2327 full 64-bit address. The command
2329 set remoteaddresssize 32
2331 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2332 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2335 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2336 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2338 maint packet heythere
2340 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2341 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2344 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2345 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2346 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2348 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2350 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2351 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2352 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2354 * mask-address variable for Mips
2356 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2357 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2358 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2360 * Higher serial baud rates
2362 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2363 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2364 to achieve all of these rates.)
2368 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2369 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2372 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2374 * New native configurations
2376 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2377 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2378 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2379 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2380 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2381 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2382 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2386 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2387 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2388 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2389 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2390 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2391 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2392 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2393 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2394 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2395 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2396 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2398 * New debugging protocols
2400 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2401 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2402 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2403 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2404 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2405 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2409 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2410 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2415 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2416 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2418 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2420 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2421 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2422 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2424 * Live range splitting
2426 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2427 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2428 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2432 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2433 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2437 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2438 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2439 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2444 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2449 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2450 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2451 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2452 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2453 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2454 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2458 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2459 the symbol at the specified address.
2463 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2464 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2465 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2466 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2467 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2471 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2472 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2473 of most MIPS variants.
2477 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2478 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2479 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2483 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2484 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2485 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2486 the possible architectures.
2488 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2490 * New native configurations
2492 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2493 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2494 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2495 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2496 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2497 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2501 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2502 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2503 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2504 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2505 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2507 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2511 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2512 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2513 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2514 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2515 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2519 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2521 * Windows 95/NT native
2523 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2524 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2525 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2526 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2527 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2529 * dont-repeat command
2531 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2532 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2533 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2534 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2536 * Send break instead of ^C
2538 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2539 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2540 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2542 * Remote protocol timeout
2544 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2545 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2546 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2548 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2550 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2551 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2552 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2553 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2554 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2556 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2557 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2558 automatically on hpux10.
2560 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2562 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2564 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2566 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2567 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2568 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2569 every character. The default value is 1050.
2571 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2573 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2574 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2575 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2576 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2577 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2578 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2580 * Speedups for remote debugging
2582 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2583 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2584 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2586 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2588 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2589 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2591 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2593 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2595 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2596 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2598 * Remote targets use caching
2600 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2601 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2602 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2603 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2604 off' turns the the data cache off.
2606 * Remote targets may have threads
2608 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2609 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2610 gdb/remote.c for details.
2614 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2615 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2616 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2617 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2618 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2619 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2620 sequence is something like
2622 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2624 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2628 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2629 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2630 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2631 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2632 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2633 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2634 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2635 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2639 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2640 but does simplify configuration and building.
2644 GDB now supports hpux10.
2646 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2648 * New native configurations
2650 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2651 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2652 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2653 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2657 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2658 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2659 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2660 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2663 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2665 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2666 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2667 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2668 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2669 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2671 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2673 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2674 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2677 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2679 To execute the command use:
2682 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2683 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2684 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2686 * New `if' and `while' commands
2688 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2689 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2690 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2691 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2692 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2693 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2694 if the expression is zero.
2696 * Fortran source language mode
2698 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2699 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2700 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2701 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2704 * Better HPUX support
2706 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2707 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2708 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2709 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2710 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2716 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2717 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2723 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2724 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2727 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2728 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2730 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2732 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2733 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2734 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2735 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2736 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2737 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2739 * New DOS host serial code
2741 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2742 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2745 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2747 * New "complete" command
2749 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2750 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2752 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2754 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2755 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2757 * Breakpoint hit counts
2759 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2760 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2761 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2762 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2763 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2766 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2768 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2769 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2770 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2772 * Shared library breakpoints
2774 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2775 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2777 * Hardware watchpoints
2779 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2780 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2782 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2786 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2787 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2789 * Improved Irix 5 support
2791 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2793 * Improved HPPA support
2795 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2797 * New native configurations
2799 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2800 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2801 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2802 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2806 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2807 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2810 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2812 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2813 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2817 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2818 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2820 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2822 * Irix 5 is now supported
2826 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2827 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2828 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2829 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2830 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2833 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2835 * User visible changes:
2839 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2840 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2841 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2842 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2843 debugging info for the mips target).
2845 * DEC Alpha native support
2847 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2848 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2849 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2850 Alpha-specific notes.
2852 * Preliminary thread implementation
2854 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2856 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2858 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2859 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2862 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2864 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2865 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2866 call methods, ...etc.
2868 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2870 * User visible changes:
2872 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2873 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2874 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2875 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2877 Filename completion now works.
2879 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2880 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2881 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2883 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2884 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2885 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2886 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2887 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2891 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2892 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2895 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2899 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2900 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2901 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2905 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2906 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2907 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2908 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2909 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2913 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2914 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2915 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2917 * New targets supported
2919 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2920 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2921 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2922 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2923 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2925 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2926 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2927 GO32 memory extender.
2929 * New remote protocols
2931 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2933 * New source languages supported
2935 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2936 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2937 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2940 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2942 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2944 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2945 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2946 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2947 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2948 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2949 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2951 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2953 * Faster and better demangling
2955 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2956 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2957 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2958 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2959 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2960 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2963 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2964 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2965 compiler does not actually implement.
2967 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2969 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2970 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2971 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2972 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2973 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2974 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2977 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2978 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2980 * Improved configure script
2982 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2983 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2984 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2985 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2987 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2988 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2989 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2990 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2991 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2992 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2994 * Documentation improvements
2996 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2997 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2998 before submitting changes.
3000 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3001 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3002 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3003 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3004 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3006 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3007 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3008 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3009 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3010 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3011 around this problem.
3015 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3016 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3017 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3020 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3021 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3023 * New native hosts supported
3025 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3026 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3028 * New targets supported
3030 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3032 * New file formats supported
3034 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3035 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3039 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3041 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3042 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3044 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3045 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3046 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3048 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3049 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3051 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3052 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3053 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3056 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3057 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3058 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3059 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3060 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3062 * Internal improvements
3064 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3065 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3067 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3068 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3069 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3070 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3071 shared code that handles any of them.
3073 * New command line options
3075 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3079 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3080 General Public License.
3082 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3084 * Host/native/target split
3086 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3087 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3088 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3089 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3090 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3092 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3093 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3094 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3095 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3096 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3097 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3098 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3100 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3101 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3102 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3104 * New hosts supported
3106 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3107 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3108 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3110 * New targets supported
3112 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3113 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3115 * New native hosts supported
3117 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3118 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3119 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3121 * New file formats supported
3123 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3124 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3125 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3129 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3130 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3131 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3133 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3135 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3136 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3137 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3138 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3142 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3143 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3144 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3146 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3150 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3151 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3154 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3155 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3157 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3158 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3159 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3160 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3161 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3162 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3164 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3165 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3166 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3167 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3171 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3172 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3173 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3174 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3175 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3177 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3178 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3179 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3180 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3184 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3185 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3186 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3187 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3188 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3189 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3190 each instruction being stepped through.
3192 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3193 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3195 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3196 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3197 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3198 processor with a serial port.
3202 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3203 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3204 supported, and what files each one uses.
3208 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3209 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3210 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3211 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3213 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3214 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3215 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3216 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3220 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3221 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3222 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3223 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3224 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3225 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3227 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3230 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3232 * Better support for C++ function names
3234 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3235 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3236 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3237 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3238 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3240 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3241 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3242 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3243 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3244 for the list of formats.
3246 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3248 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3249 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3250 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3251 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3252 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3253 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3256 * New 'maintenance' command
3258 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3259 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3260 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3262 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3263 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3264 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3265 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3266 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3267 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3269 The following commands are new:
3271 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3272 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3273 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3275 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3277 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3278 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3279 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3280 read after argv processing.
3282 * New hosts supported
3284 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3286 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3288 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3289 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3290 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3291 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3292 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3295 * New targets supported
3297 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3299 * More smarts about finding #include files
3301 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3302 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3303 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3304 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3305 the one that contains your sources.
3307 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3308 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3309 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3311 * Interesting infernals change
3313 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3314 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3315 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3316 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3318 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3320 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3321 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3322 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3324 See the ChangeLog for details.
3326 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3328 * New machines supported (host and target)
3330 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3332 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3334 * New malloc package
3336 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3337 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3338 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3339 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3340 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3341 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3345 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3346 'help info proc' for details.
3348 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3350 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3351 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3354 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3356 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3357 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3358 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3359 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3360 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3361 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3363 * Cross byte order fixes
3365 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3366 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3368 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3370 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3371 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3372 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3373 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3374 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3375 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3376 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3377 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3378 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3379 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3381 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3382 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3383 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3384 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3386 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3387 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3388 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3391 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3393 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3394 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3395 shared across multiple host platforms.
3397 * longjmp() handling
3399 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3400 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3401 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3402 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3406 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3407 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3412 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3413 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3414 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3416 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3418 * New machines supported (host and target)
3420 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3422 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3423 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3425 * New machines supported (target)
3427 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3431 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3432 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3433 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3435 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3436 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3437 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3438 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3439 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3442 * New features for SVR4
3444 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3445 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3446 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3448 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3449 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3450 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3452 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3453 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3455 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3457 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3458 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3459 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3460 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3461 same code linked statically.
3465 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3466 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3467 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3468 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3469 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3470 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3474 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3475 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3476 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3479 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3481 * New machines supported (host and target)
3483 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3484 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3485 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3487 * Almost SCO Unix support
3489 We had hoped to support:
3490 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3491 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3492 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3493 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3495 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3497 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3498 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3499 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3500 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3505 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3506 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3507 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3511 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3512 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3513 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3515 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3517 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3518 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3519 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3521 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3522 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3523 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3524 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3527 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3528 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3529 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3530 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3533 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3534 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3537 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3538 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3539 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3542 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3544 * Improved configuration
3546 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3547 Porting BFD is simpler.
3551 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3552 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3553 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3554 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3558 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3560 * New host supported (not target)
3562 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3565 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3567 * Multiple source language support
3569 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3570 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3571 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3572 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3573 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3574 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3578 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3579 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3580 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3581 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3583 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3584 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3585 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3587 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3588 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3592 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3593 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3594 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3595 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3598 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3600 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3601 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3602 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3603 examining core files.
3607 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3610 * New machines supported (host and target)
3612 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3613 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3614 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3616 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3618 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3620 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3622 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3623 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3624 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3626 * New remote interfaces
3632 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3636 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3638 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3639 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3640 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3641 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3642 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3643 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3644 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3645 stub on the target system.
3647 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3649 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3650 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3651 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3653 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3654 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3657 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3659 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3660 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3662 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3663 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3664 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3666 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3667 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3668 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3669 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3671 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3672 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3673 it is already running. Default is ON.
3675 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3676 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3677 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3678 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3681 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3682 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3683 or the value of the environment variable
3686 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3687 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3690 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3691 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3692 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3694 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3695 history expansion will be performed on
3696 command line input. The default is OFF.
3698 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3699 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3700 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3702 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3703 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3704 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3707 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3708 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3709 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3712 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3713 ``set width'' instead.
3715 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3716 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3717 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3718 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3720 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3723 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3726 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3729 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3732 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3734 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3735 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3736 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3740 * Support for Shared Libraries
3742 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3743 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3744 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3745 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3746 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3747 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3748 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3749 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3751 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3752 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3753 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3755 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3760 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3761 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3762 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3763 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3764 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3765 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3767 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3769 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3771 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3772 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3773 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3776 * C++ multiple inheritance
3778 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3781 * C++ exception handling
3783 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3784 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3785 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3788 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3789 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3790 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3792 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3793 current stack frame.
3796 * Minor command changes
3798 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3799 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3800 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3802 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3803 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3804 frames without printing.
3806 * New directory command
3808 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3809 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3810 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3811 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3812 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3814 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3816 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3819 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3820 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3821 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3822 where the program that you are debugging will run.