1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.1
6 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
8 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
9 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
10 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
11 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
12 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
13 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
19 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
21 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
22 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
25 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
27 - GDBserver now support tracepoints. The feature is currently
28 supported by the i386-linux and amd64-linux builds.
30 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
31 it understands register description.
33 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
35 * X86 general purpose registers
37 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
38 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
39 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
40 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
41 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
43 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
44 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
45 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
46 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
47 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
48 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
52 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
53 tables, program spaces, and frame's code blocks.
55 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
56 gdb.progspaces, and gdb.current_progspace.
58 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
60 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
61 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
62 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
67 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
69 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
75 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
76 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
77 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
78 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
79 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
83 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
84 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
89 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
90 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
94 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
99 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
102 * Multi-program debugging.
104 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
105 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
106 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
107 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
108 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
109 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
110 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
111 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
113 * New tracing features
115 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
117 ** Trace state variables
119 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
120 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
121 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
122 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
123 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
124 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
125 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
126 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
127 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
128 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
132 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
133 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
134 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
135 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
136 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
137 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
138 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
139 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
140 the regular trace command.
142 ** Disconnected tracing
144 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
145 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
146 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
147 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
148 connection is lost unexpectedly.
152 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
153 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
154 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
155 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
156 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
157 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
160 ** Circular trace buffer
162 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
163 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
164 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
165 not be available for all target agents.
170 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
171 the arguments to be comma-separated.
174 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
175 which only declare a variable are not shown.
178 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
179 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
182 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
183 "set script-extension" (see below).
185 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
187 record save [<FILENAME>]
188 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
189 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
191 record restore <FILENAME>
192 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
193 earlier time, for replay debugging.
195 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
198 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
199 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
205 maint info program-spaces
206 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
208 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
209 show remote interrupt-sequence
210 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
211 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
212 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
213 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
214 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
216 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
217 show remote interrupt-on-connect
218 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
219 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
222 set remotebreak [on | off]
224 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
226 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
227 Create or modify a trace state variable.
230 List trace state variables and their values.
232 delete tvariable $NAME ...
233 Delete one or more trace state variables.
236 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
237 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
239 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
240 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
242 * New expression syntax
244 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
245 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
249 set follow-exec-mode new|same
250 show follow-exec-mode
251 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
252 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
253 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
255 set default-collect EXPR, ...
257 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
258 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
259 such as registers or a critical global variable.
261 set disconnected-tracing
262 show disconnected-tracing
263 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
264 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
267 set circular-trace-buffer
268 show circular-trace-buffer
269 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
270 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
271 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
272 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
274 set script-extension off|soft|strict
275 show script-extension
276 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
277 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
278 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
279 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
281 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
283 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
284 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
285 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
286 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
287 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
288 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
289 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
292 * Python API Improvements
294 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
295 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
296 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
298 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
299 `is_base_class' attribute.
301 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
303 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
304 evaluate an expression.
309 Define a trace state variable.
312 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
315 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
318 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
321 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
325 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
327 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
328 much more reliable. In particular:
329 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
330 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
331 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
332 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
333 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
334 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
335 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
336 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
337 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
338 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
339 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
340 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
341 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
342 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
343 non-threaded programs.
345 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
346 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
347 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
350 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
352 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
353 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
354 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
355 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
356 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
358 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
359 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
360 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
361 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
362 for tracepoint actions.
364 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
365 in hex as well as in symbolic form.
367 * Process record and replay
369 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
370 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
371 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
374 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
375 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
376 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
379 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
380 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
383 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
384 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
385 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
386 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
387 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
388 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
389 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
390 the installation instructions for more information.
392 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
393 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
394 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
395 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
397 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
398 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
400 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
401 now complete on file names.
403 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
404 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
405 For instance, consider:
407 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
408 # struct example variable;
411 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
412 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
414 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
415 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
417 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
418 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
421 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
422 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
423 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
425 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
426 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
427 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
428 and simulator targets may also provide them.
433 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
436 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
437 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
438 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
441 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
442 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
445 Obtains additional operating system information
449 Read or write additional signal information.
451 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
453 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
454 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
455 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
457 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
460 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
461 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
463 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
464 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
465 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
467 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
468 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
470 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
472 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
474 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
475 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
477 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
478 list of section offsets.
480 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
481 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
482 have also been fixed.
484 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
485 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
486 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
488 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
491 template<typename T> class C { };
494 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
496 ptype C<char const *>
498 ptype C<const char *>
501 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
503 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
504 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
506 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
507 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
508 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
510 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
511 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
513 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
516 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
517 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
519 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
520 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
525 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
526 available is determined at configure time.
528 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
530 * Ada tasking support
532 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
536 Print the list of Ada tasks.
538 Print detailed information about task number N.
540 Print the task number of the current task.
542 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
544 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
545 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
547 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
549 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
550 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
551 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
552 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
553 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
554 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
557 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
558 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
561 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
562 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
563 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
564 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
567 * Multi-architecture debugging.
569 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
570 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
571 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
572 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
573 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
575 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
576 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
577 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
578 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
579 --enable-targets configure option.
581 * Non-stop mode debugging.
583 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
584 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
585 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
586 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
587 section in the user manual for more information.
589 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
590 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
591 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
592 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
593 extensions on linux targets.
595 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
597 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
598 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
599 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
600 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
601 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
602 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
603 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
604 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
605 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
607 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
609 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
611 maint set python print-stack
612 maint show python print-stack
613 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
616 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
621 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
625 Show operating system information about processes.
628 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
631 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
634 Detach from inferior number NUM.
637 Kill inferior number NUM.
642 show spu stop-on-load
643 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
645 set spu auto-flush-cache
646 show spu auto-flush-cache
647 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
648 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
650 set sh calling-convention
651 show sh calling-convention
652 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
656 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
658 set disassemble-next-line
659 show disassemble-next-line
660 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
663 set remote noack-packet
664 show remote noack-packet
665 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
666 under "New remote packets."
668 set remote query-attached-packet
669 show remote query-attached-packet
670 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
672 set remote read-siginfo-object
673 show remote read-siginfo-object
674 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
677 set remote write-siginfo-object
678 show remote write-siginfo-object
679 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
682 set remote reverse-continue
683 show remote reverse-continue
684 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
686 set remote reverse-step
687 show remote reverse-step
688 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
690 set displaced-stepping
691 show displaced-stepping
692 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
693 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
694 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
698 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
700 maint set internal-error
701 maint show internal-error
702 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
704 maint set internal-warning
705 maint show internal-warning
706 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
711 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
713 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
714 show multiple-symbols
715 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
716 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
717 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
719 set breakpoint always-inserted
720 show breakpoint always-inserted
721 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
722 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
723 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
725 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
726 show arm fallback-mode
727 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
729 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
730 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
731 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
732 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
734 set disable-randomization
735 show disable-randomization
736 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
737 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
738 multiple debugging sessions.
742 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
747 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
748 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
749 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
750 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
752 set target-wide-charset
753 show target-wide-charset
754 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
755 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
757 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
759 set tcp connect-timeout
760 show tcp connect-timeout
761 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
762 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
763 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
765 set libthread-db-search-path
766 show libthread-db-search-path
767 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
770 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
771 show schedule-multiple
772 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
777 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
778 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
779 affecting correctness.
781 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
782 show interactive-mode
783 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
784 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
785 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
786 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
787 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
792 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
793 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
794 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
798 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
799 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
800 alias for the `fork' command.
803 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
804 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
805 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
808 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
809 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
810 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
814 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
815 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
816 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
819 * New native configurations
821 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
823 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
827 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
828 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
829 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
832 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
833 (mingw32ce) debugging.
839 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
841 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
843 * New native configurations
845 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
846 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
850 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
851 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
853 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
855 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
856 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
857 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
858 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
860 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
861 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
863 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
866 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
867 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
868 and in inlined functions.
870 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
871 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
872 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
874 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
876 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
877 registers on PowerPC targets.
879 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
880 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
882 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
883 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
885 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
886 extended-remote mode.
888 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
889 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
890 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
891 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
893 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
894 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
895 target architectures.
897 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
898 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
899 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
900 stored in two consecutive float registers.
902 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
905 * Improved support for debugging Ada
906 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
908 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
909 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
910 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
911 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
913 - Improved command completion in Ada
916 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
921 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
922 show print frame-arguments
923 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
924 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
929 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
936 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
945 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
948 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
952 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
954 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
956 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
957 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
958 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
960 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
961 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
962 -Bsymbolic linker option.
964 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
965 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
968 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
969 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
971 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
972 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
974 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
976 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
977 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
978 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
980 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
981 automatically displayed as character or string data.
983 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
984 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
987 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
988 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
989 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
991 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
994 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
995 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
996 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
998 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1000 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1002 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1003 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1004 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1006 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1007 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1009 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1010 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1011 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1012 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1013 Windows and SymbianOS).
1015 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1016 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1018 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1019 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1025 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1026 when debugging using remote targets.
1028 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1029 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1030 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1031 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1032 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1033 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1034 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1036 set breakpoint auto-hw
1037 show breakpoint auto-hw
1038 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1039 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1040 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1041 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1042 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1043 including "next" and "finish".
1046 catch exception unhandled
1047 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1050 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1054 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1055 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1056 an alias to "set sysroot".
1059 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1060 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1063 * New native configurations
1065 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1068 unset tdesc filename
1070 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1071 not query the target for its built-in description.
1075 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1076 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1077 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1079 * New remote packets
1082 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1083 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1085 qXfer:features:read:
1086 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1091 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1092 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1094 qXfer:libraries:read:
1095 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1096 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1097 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1098 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1102 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1110 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1111 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1112 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1113 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1115 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1118 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1119 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1128 * Other removed features
1135 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1142 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1147 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1148 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1153 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1154 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1156 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1158 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1159 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1160 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1161 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1163 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1165 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1166 in debugging information.
1170 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1171 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1173 set mips stack-arg-size
1174 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1176 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1178 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1183 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1185 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1186 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1187 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1189 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1190 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1193 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1194 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1196 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1197 stub provides the required support.
1199 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1200 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1205 unset substitute-path
1206 show substitute-path
1207 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1208 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1209 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1210 between compilation and debugging.
1214 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1215 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1216 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1220 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1222 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1223 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1225 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1227 * New remote packets
1230 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1231 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1232 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1233 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1237 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1238 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1240 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1241 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1242 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1247 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1249 * Removed remote packets
1252 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1253 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1255 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1259 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1261 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1265 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1266 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1268 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1270 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1272 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1273 previously saved state.
1275 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1277 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1279 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1280 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1282 info forks List forks of the user program that
1283 are available to be debugged.
1285 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1286 forks of the user program that are
1287 available to be debugged.
1289 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1290 that are available to be debugged (and
1291 kill the forked process).
1293 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1294 that are available to be debugged (and
1295 allow the process to continue).
1299 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1301 * Improved Windows host support
1303 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1304 native console support, and remote communications using either
1305 network sockets or serial ports.
1307 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1309 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1310 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1311 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1312 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1313 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1314 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1318 The ARM rdi-share module.
1320 The Netware NLM debug server.
1322 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1324 * New native configurations
1326 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1327 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1331 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1333 * New command line options
1335 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1336 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1337 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1338 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1339 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1340 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1341 with the --command (-x) option.
1343 * Deprecated commands removed
1345 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1349 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1350 othernames set arm disassembler
1351 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1352 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1353 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1356 * New BSD user-level threads support
1358 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1359 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1362 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1363 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1364 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1366 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1367 are not yet supported.
1369 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1370 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1372 * REMOVED configurations and files
1374 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1375 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1376 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1378 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1380 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1381 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1384 * VAX floating point support
1386 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1388 * User-defined command support
1390 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1391 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1392 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1394 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1396 * New command line option
1398 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1401 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1403 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1404 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1405 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1406 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1407 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1409 * Internationalization
1411 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1412 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1413 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1417 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1418 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1419 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1421 * New native configurations
1423 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1427 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1428 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1430 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1432 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1433 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1434 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1437 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1438 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1439 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1449 powerpc bdm protocol
1451 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1452 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1454 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1456 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1457 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1458 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1459 permanently REMOVED.
1468 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1470 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1472 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1473 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1476 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1478 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1479 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1480 IRIX long double values).
1484 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1485 command. This problem has been fixed.
1487 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1489 * Fix for ``many threads''
1491 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1492 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1495 ptrace: No such process.
1496 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1498 This problem has been fixed.
1500 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1502 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1505 * New ``start'' command.
1507 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1509 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1511 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1512 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1513 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1515 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1516 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1517 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1518 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1519 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1520 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1521 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1522 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1523 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1525 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1527 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1528 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1529 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1530 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1531 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1533 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1534 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1535 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1537 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1539 * New native configurations
1541 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1542 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1543 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1544 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1545 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1546 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1547 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1549 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1551 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1552 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1553 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1554 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1555 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1556 work, was also included.
1558 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1559 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1569 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1570 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1572 * REMOVED configurations and files
1574 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1575 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1576 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1577 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1578 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1579 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1580 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1581 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1582 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1583 sonymips mips-sony-*
1584 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1586 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1588 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1590 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1591 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1592 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1593 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1596 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1598 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1599 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1600 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1601 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1602 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1603 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1606 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1608 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1610 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1611 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1612 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1614 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1616 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1617 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1619 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1621 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1622 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1623 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1625 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1627 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1628 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1630 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1632 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1633 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1634 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1636 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1638 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1639 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1640 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1642 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1644 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1646 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1647 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1649 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1651 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1652 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1653 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1654 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1656 * Revised SPARC target
1658 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1659 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1660 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1661 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1662 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1666 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1667 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1668 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1671 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1673 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1674 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1677 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1679 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1680 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1681 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1682 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1683 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1684 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1685 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1686 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1687 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1689 * New native configurations
1691 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1692 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1693 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1694 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1695 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1697 * New debugging protocols
1699 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1701 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1703 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1704 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1705 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1707 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1709 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1710 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1711 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1712 permanently REMOVED.
1714 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1715 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1716 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1717 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1718 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1719 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1720 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1721 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1722 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1723 sonymips mips-sony-*
1724 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1726 * REMOVED configurations and files
1728 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1729 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1730 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1731 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1732 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1733 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1734 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1735 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1736 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1737 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1738 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1739 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1740 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1741 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1742 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1743 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1744 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1746 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1750 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1751 integrated into GDB.
1753 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1755 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1756 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1757 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1760 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1761 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1762 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1766 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1767 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1768 remote protocol documentation for details.
1770 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1772 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1773 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1774 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1777 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1779 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1780 per-thread variables.
1782 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1784 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1785 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1787 * Separate debug info.
1789 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1790 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1791 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1792 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1793 and optional debug files.
1795 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1797 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1798 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1801 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1802 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1806 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1807 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1808 considered "useable".
1810 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1812 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1813 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1816 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1818 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1819 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1821 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1823 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1824 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1827 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1829 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1830 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1834 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1835 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1836 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1837 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1838 data, for more informative profiling results.
1840 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1842 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1843 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1844 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1846 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1849 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1850 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1851 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1852 in a subsequent -var-update.
1854 * New native configurations.
1856 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1858 * Multi-arched targets.
1860 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1861 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1863 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1865 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1866 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1867 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1868 permanently REMOVED.
1870 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1871 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1872 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1873 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1874 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1875 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1876 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1877 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1878 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1879 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1880 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1881 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1883 * REMOVED configurations and files
1886 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1887 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1888 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1889 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1890 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1891 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1893 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1894 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1895 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1896 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1897 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1898 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1900 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1902 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1903 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1904 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1905 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1906 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1908 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1910 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1912 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1913 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1914 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1915 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1916 shared libs like mad''.
1918 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1920 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1921 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1922 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1923 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1925 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1927 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1928 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1931 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1932 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1934 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1935 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1937 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1938 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1939 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1940 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1942 * Multi-arched targets.
1944 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1945 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1947 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1948 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1949 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1953 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1956 * New native configurations
1958 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1959 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1960 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1961 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1963 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1965 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1966 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1967 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1968 permanently REMOVED.
1970 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1971 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1972 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1973 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1974 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1975 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1976 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1977 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1978 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1979 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1981 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1982 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1984 * OBSOLETE languages
1986 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1988 * REMOVED configurations and files
1990 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1991 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1992 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1993 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1994 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1996 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1998 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2000 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2001 commands. The default is 1024.
2003 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2005 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2007 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2009 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2010 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2011 from a file into memory (restore).
2013 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2015 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2016 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2017 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2019 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2027 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2028 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2029 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2031 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2032 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2033 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2035 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2036 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2037 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2039 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2040 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2041 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2043 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2045 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2047 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2048 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2049 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2050 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2051 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2052 (notably embedded) targets.
2054 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2056 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2057 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2058 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2059 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2061 * New command line option
2063 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2065 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2067 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2068 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2069 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2070 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2071 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2072 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2073 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2074 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2075 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2076 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2078 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2080 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2081 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2083 * New native configurations
2085 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2086 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2087 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2088 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2092 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2094 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2096 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2097 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2098 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2099 permanently REMOVED.
2101 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2102 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2103 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2104 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2105 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2107 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2109 * REMOVED configurations and files
2111 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2113 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2114 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2115 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2116 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2117 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2118 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2119 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2120 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2121 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2122 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2123 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2125 * Changes to command line processing
2127 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2128 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2130 * Changes to key bindings
2132 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2134 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2136 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2138 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2141 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2143 Numerous documentation fixes.
2145 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2147 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2149 * New native configurations
2151 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2152 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2153 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2154 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2155 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2156 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2160 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2162 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2164 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2166 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2167 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2168 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2169 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2170 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2172 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2173 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2174 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2175 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2176 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2177 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2178 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2179 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2181 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2182 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2184 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2185 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2186 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2187 permanently REMOVED.
2189 * REMOVED configurations and files
2191 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2192 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2194 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2198 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2200 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2201 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2206 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2208 * The MI enabled by default.
2210 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2211 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2212 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2213 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2214 which is now deprecated.
2216 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2218 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2219 main features are supported:
2221 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2223 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2226 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2228 - a Pascal expression parser.
2230 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2232 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2234 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2236 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2237 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2239 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2241 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2243 * Changes in completion.
2245 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2246 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2247 users expect at the shell prompt.
2249 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2250 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2251 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2252 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2253 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2254 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2255 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2257 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2259 * New platform-independent commands:
2261 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2262 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2263 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2265 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2267 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2268 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2269 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2271 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2273 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2274 multi-threaded programs though.
2276 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2278 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2280 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2281 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2284 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2286 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2287 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2288 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2289 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2290 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2293 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2294 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2295 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2297 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2299 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2300 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2302 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2303 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2306 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2307 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2308 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2309 a given linear address.
2311 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2312 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2313 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2315 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2317 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2319 * Changes in documentation.
2321 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2322 Documentation License.
2324 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2327 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2329 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2332 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2333 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2334 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2336 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2338 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2339 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2340 contents of this file.
2344 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2346 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2348 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2350 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2351 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2352 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2353 greater level of detail.
2355 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2357 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2358 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2359 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2362 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2364 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2365 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2366 machines ``out of the box''.
2368 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2369 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2370 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2371 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2372 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2374 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2375 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2376 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2377 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2378 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2380 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2381 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2384 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2387 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2388 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2389 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2390 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2392 * New native configurations
2394 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2395 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2399 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2400 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2401 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2402 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2404 * OBSOLETE configurations
2406 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2407 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2409 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2412 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2413 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2414 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2415 be permanently REMOVED.
2417 * Gould support removed
2419 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2421 * New features for SVR4
2423 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2424 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2425 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2427 * Many C++ enhancements
2429 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2430 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2432 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2434 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2435 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2436 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2437 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2439 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2440 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2442 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2444 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2445 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2446 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2448 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2449 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2451 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2453 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2454 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2455 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2457 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2459 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2460 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2461 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2463 * ``apropos'' command added.
2465 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2466 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2467 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2471 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2472 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2473 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2474 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2475 enabled by configuring with:
2477 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2479 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2481 * New native configurations
2483 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2484 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2485 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2489 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2490 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2491 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2493 * OBSOLETE configurations
2495 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2497 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2498 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2499 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2500 be permanently REMOVED.
2504 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2505 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2506 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2507 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2508 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2509 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2510 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2515 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2517 * set extension-language
2519 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2520 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2521 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2522 set extension-language .c c++
2523 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2524 and their associated languages.
2526 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2528 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2529 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2530 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2534 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2535 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2537 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2538 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2540 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2541 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2542 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2543 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2544 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2545 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2546 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2547 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2549 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2550 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2551 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2552 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2556 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2557 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2558 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2559 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2560 for xdb and dbx commands.
2564 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2565 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2566 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2568 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2569 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2570 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2572 * Debugging across forks
2574 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2579 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2580 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2581 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2583 * GDB remote protocol additions
2585 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2586 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2587 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2588 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2590 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2591 full 64-bit address. The command
2593 set remoteaddresssize 32
2595 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2596 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2599 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2600 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2602 maint packet heythere
2604 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2605 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2608 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2609 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2610 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2612 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2614 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2615 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2616 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2618 * mask-address variable for Mips
2620 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2621 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2622 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2624 * Higher serial baud rates
2626 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2627 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2628 to achieve all of these rates.)
2632 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2633 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2636 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2638 * New native configurations
2640 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2641 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2642 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2643 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2644 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2645 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2646 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2650 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2651 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2652 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2653 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2654 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2655 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2656 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2657 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2658 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2659 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2660 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2662 * New debugging protocols
2664 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2665 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2666 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2667 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2668 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2669 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2673 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2674 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2679 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2680 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2682 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2684 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2685 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2686 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2688 * Live range splitting
2690 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2691 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2692 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2696 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2697 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2701 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2702 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2703 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2708 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2713 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2714 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2715 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2716 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2717 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2718 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2722 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2723 the symbol at the specified address.
2727 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2728 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2729 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2730 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2731 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2735 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2736 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2737 of most MIPS variants.
2741 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2742 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2743 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2747 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2748 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2749 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2750 the possible architectures.
2752 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2754 * New native configurations
2756 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2757 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2758 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2759 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2760 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2761 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2765 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2766 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2767 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2768 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2769 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2771 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2775 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2776 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2777 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2778 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2779 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2783 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2785 * Windows 95/NT native
2787 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2788 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2789 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2790 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2791 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2793 * dont-repeat command
2795 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2796 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2797 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2798 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2800 * Send break instead of ^C
2802 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2803 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2804 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2806 * Remote protocol timeout
2808 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2809 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2810 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2812 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2814 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2815 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2816 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2817 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2818 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2820 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2821 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2822 automatically on hpux10.
2824 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2826 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2828 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2830 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2831 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2832 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2833 every character. The default value is 1050.
2835 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2837 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2838 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2839 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2840 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2841 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2842 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2844 * Speedups for remote debugging
2846 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2847 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2848 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2850 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2852 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2853 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2855 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2857 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2859 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2860 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2862 * Remote targets use caching
2864 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2865 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2866 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2867 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2868 off' turns the the data cache off.
2870 * Remote targets may have threads
2872 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2873 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2874 gdb/remote.c for details.
2878 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2879 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2880 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2881 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2882 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2883 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2884 sequence is something like
2886 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2888 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2892 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2893 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2894 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2895 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2896 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2897 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2898 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2899 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2903 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2904 but does simplify configuration and building.
2908 GDB now supports hpux10.
2910 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2912 * New native configurations
2914 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2915 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2916 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2917 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2921 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2922 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2923 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2924 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2927 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2929 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2930 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2931 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2932 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2933 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2935 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2937 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2938 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2941 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2943 To execute the command use:
2946 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2947 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2948 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2950 * New `if' and `while' commands
2952 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2953 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2954 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2955 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2956 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2957 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2958 if the expression is zero.
2960 * Fortran source language mode
2962 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2963 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2964 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2965 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2968 * Better HPUX support
2970 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2971 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2972 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2973 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2974 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2980 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2981 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2987 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2988 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2991 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2992 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2994 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2996 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2997 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2998 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2999 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3000 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3001 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3003 * New DOS host serial code
3005 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3006 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3009 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3011 * New "complete" command
3013 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3014 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3016 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3018 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3019 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3021 * Breakpoint hit counts
3023 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3024 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3025 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3026 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3027 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3030 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3032 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3033 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3034 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3036 * Shared library breakpoints
3038 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3039 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3041 * Hardware watchpoints
3043 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3044 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3046 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3050 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3051 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3053 * Improved Irix 5 support
3055 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3057 * Improved HPPA support
3059 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3061 * New native configurations
3063 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3064 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3065 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3066 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3070 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3071 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3074 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3076 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3077 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3081 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3082 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3084 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3086 * Irix 5 is now supported
3090 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3091 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3092 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3093 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3094 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3097 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3099 * User visible changes:
3103 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3104 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3105 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3106 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3107 debugging info for the mips target).
3109 * DEC Alpha native support
3111 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3112 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3113 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3114 Alpha-specific notes.
3116 * Preliminary thread implementation
3118 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3120 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3122 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3123 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3126 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3128 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3129 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3130 call methods, ...etc.
3132 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3134 * User visible changes:
3136 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3137 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3138 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3139 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3141 Filename completion now works.
3143 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3144 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3145 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3147 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3148 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3149 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3150 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3151 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3155 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3156 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3159 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3163 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3164 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3165 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3169 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3170 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3171 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3172 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3173 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3177 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3178 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3179 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3181 * New targets supported
3183 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3184 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3185 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3186 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3187 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3189 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3190 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3191 GO32 memory extender.
3193 * New remote protocols
3195 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3197 * New source languages supported
3199 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3200 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3201 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3204 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3206 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3208 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3209 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3210 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3211 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3212 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3213 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3215 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3217 * Faster and better demangling
3219 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3220 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3221 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3222 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3223 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3224 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3227 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3228 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3229 compiler does not actually implement.
3231 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3233 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3234 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3235 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3236 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3237 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3238 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3241 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3242 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3244 * Improved configure script
3246 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3247 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3248 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3249 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3251 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3252 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3253 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3254 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3255 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3256 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3258 * Documentation improvements
3260 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3261 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3262 before submitting changes.
3264 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3265 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3266 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3267 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3268 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3270 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3271 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3272 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3273 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3274 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3275 around this problem.
3279 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3280 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3281 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3284 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3285 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3287 * New native hosts supported
3289 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3290 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3292 * New targets supported
3294 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3296 * New file formats supported
3298 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3299 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3303 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3305 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3306 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3308 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3309 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3310 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3312 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3313 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3315 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3316 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3317 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3320 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3321 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3322 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3323 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3324 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3326 * Internal improvements
3328 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3329 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3331 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3332 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3333 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3334 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3335 shared code that handles any of them.
3337 * New command line options
3339 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3343 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3344 General Public License.
3346 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3348 * Host/native/target split
3350 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3351 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3352 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3353 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3354 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3356 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3357 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3358 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3359 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3360 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3361 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3362 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3364 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3365 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3366 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3368 * New hosts supported
3370 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3371 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3372 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3374 * New targets supported
3376 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3377 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3379 * New native hosts supported
3381 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3382 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3383 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3385 * New file formats supported
3387 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3388 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3389 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3393 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3394 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3395 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3397 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3399 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3400 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3401 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3402 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3406 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3407 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3408 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3410 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3414 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3415 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3418 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3419 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3421 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3422 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3423 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3424 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3425 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3426 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3428 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3429 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3430 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3431 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3435 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3436 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3437 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3438 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3439 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3441 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3442 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3443 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3444 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3448 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3449 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3450 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3451 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3452 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3453 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3454 each instruction being stepped through.
3456 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3457 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3459 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3460 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3461 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3462 processor with a serial port.
3466 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3467 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3468 supported, and what files each one uses.
3472 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3473 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3474 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3475 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3477 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3478 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3479 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3480 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3484 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3485 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3486 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3487 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3488 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3489 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3491 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3494 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3496 * Better support for C++ function names
3498 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3499 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3500 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3501 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3502 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3504 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3505 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3506 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3507 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3508 for the list of formats.
3510 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3512 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3513 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3514 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3515 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3516 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3517 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3520 * New 'maintenance' command
3522 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3523 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3524 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3526 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3527 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3528 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3529 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3530 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3531 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3533 The following commands are new:
3535 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3536 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3537 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3539 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3541 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3542 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3543 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3544 read after argv processing.
3546 * New hosts supported
3548 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3550 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3552 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3553 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3554 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3555 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3556 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3559 * New targets supported
3561 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3563 * More smarts about finding #include files
3565 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3566 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3567 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3568 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3569 the one that contains your sources.
3571 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3572 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3573 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3575 * Interesting infernals change
3577 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3578 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3579 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3580 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3582 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3584 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3585 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3586 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3588 See the ChangeLog for details.
3590 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3592 * New machines supported (host and target)
3594 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3596 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3598 * New malloc package
3600 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3601 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3602 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3603 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3604 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3605 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3609 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3610 'help info proc' for details.
3612 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3614 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3615 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3618 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3620 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3621 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3622 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3623 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3624 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3625 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3627 * Cross byte order fixes
3629 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3630 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3632 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3634 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3635 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3636 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3637 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3638 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3639 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3640 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3641 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3642 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3643 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3645 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3646 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3647 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3648 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3650 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3651 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3652 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3655 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3657 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3658 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3659 shared across multiple host platforms.
3661 * longjmp() handling
3663 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3664 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3665 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3666 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3670 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3671 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3676 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3677 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3678 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3680 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3682 * New machines supported (host and target)
3684 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3686 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3687 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3689 * New machines supported (target)
3691 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3695 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3696 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3697 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3699 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3700 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3701 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3702 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3703 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3706 * New features for SVR4
3708 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3709 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3710 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3712 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3713 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3714 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3716 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3717 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3719 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3721 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3722 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3723 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3724 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3725 same code linked statically.
3729 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3730 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3731 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3732 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3733 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3734 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3738 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3739 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3740 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3743 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3745 * New machines supported (host and target)
3747 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3748 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3749 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3751 * Almost SCO Unix support
3753 We had hoped to support:
3754 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3755 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3756 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3757 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3759 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3761 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3762 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3763 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3764 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3769 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3770 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3771 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3775 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3776 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3777 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3779 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3781 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3782 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3783 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3785 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3786 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3787 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3788 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3791 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3792 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3793 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3794 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3797 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3798 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3801 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3802 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3803 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3806 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3808 * Improved configuration
3810 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3811 Porting BFD is simpler.
3815 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3816 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3817 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3818 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3822 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3824 * New host supported (not target)
3826 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3829 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3831 * Multiple source language support
3833 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3834 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3835 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3836 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3837 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3838 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3842 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3843 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3844 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3845 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3847 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3848 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3849 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3851 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3852 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3856 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3857 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3858 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3859 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3862 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3864 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3865 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3866 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3867 examining core files.
3871 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3874 * New machines supported (host and target)
3876 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3877 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3878 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3880 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3882 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3884 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3886 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3887 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3888 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3890 * New remote interfaces
3896 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3900 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3902 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3903 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3904 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3905 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3906 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3907 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3908 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3909 stub on the target system.
3911 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3913 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3914 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3915 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3917 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3918 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3921 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3923 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3924 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3926 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3927 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3928 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3930 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3931 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3932 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3933 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3935 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3936 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3937 it is already running. Default is ON.
3939 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3940 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3941 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3942 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3945 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3946 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3947 or the value of the environment variable
3950 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3951 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3954 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3955 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3956 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3958 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3959 history expansion will be performed on
3960 command line input. The default is OFF.
3962 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3963 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3964 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3966 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3967 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3968 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3971 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3972 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3973 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3976 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3977 ``set width'' instead.
3979 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3980 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3981 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3982 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3984 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3987 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3990 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3993 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3996 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3998 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3999 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4000 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4004 * Support for Shared Libraries
4006 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4007 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4008 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4009 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4010 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4011 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4012 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4013 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4015 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4016 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4017 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4019 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4024 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4025 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4026 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4027 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4028 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4029 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4031 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4033 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4035 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4036 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4037 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4040 * C++ multiple inheritance
4042 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4045 * C++ exception handling
4047 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4048 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4049 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4052 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4053 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4054 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4056 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4057 current stack frame.
4060 * Minor command changes
4062 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4063 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4064 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4066 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4067 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4068 frames without printing.
4070 * New directory command
4072 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4073 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4074 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4075 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4076 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4078 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4080 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4083 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4084 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4085 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4086 where the program that you are debugging will run.