1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.2:
6 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
8 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
10 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
13 * New ``start'' command.
15 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
17 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
19 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
20 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
21 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
23 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
24 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
25 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
26 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
27 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
28 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
29 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
30 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
31 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
33 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
35 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
36 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
37 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
38 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
39 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
41 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
42 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
43 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
45 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
47 * New native configurations
49 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
50 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
51 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
52 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
53 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
54 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
55 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
57 * REMOVED configurations and files
59 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
60 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
61 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
62 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
63 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
64 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
65 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
66 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
67 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
69 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
71 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
73 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
75 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
76 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
77 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
78 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
81 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
83 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
84 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
85 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
86 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
87 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
88 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
91 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
93 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
95 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
96 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
97 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
99 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
101 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
102 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
104 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
106 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
107 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
108 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
110 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
112 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
113 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
115 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
117 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
118 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
119 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
121 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
123 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
124 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
125 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
127 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
129 * Removed --with-mmalloc
131 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
132 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
134 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
136 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
137 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
138 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
139 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
141 * Revised SPARC target
143 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
144 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
145 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
146 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
147 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
151 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
152 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
153 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
156 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
158 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
159 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
162 * C++ nested types and namespaces
164 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
165 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
166 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
167 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
168 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
169 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
170 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
171 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
172 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
174 * New native configurations
176 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
177 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
178 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
179 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
180 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
182 * New debugging protocols
184 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
186 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
188 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
189 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
190 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
192 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
194 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
195 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
196 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
199 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
200 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
201 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
202 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
203 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
204 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
205 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
206 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
207 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
209 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
211 * REMOVED configurations and files
213 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
214 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
215 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
216 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
217 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
218 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
219 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
220 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
221 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
222 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
223 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
224 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
225 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
226 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
227 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
228 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
229 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
231 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
235 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
238 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
240 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
241 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
242 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
245 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
246 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
251 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
252 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
253 remote protocol documentation for details.
255 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
257 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
258 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
259 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
262 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
264 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
265 per-thread variables.
267 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
269 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
270 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
272 * Separate debug info.
274 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
275 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
276 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
277 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
278 and optional debug files.
280 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
282 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
283 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
286 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
287 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
291 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
292 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
293 considered "useable".
295 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
297 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
298 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
301 * GDB supports logging output to a file
303 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
304 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
306 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
308 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
309 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
312 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
314 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
315 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
319 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
320 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
321 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
322 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
323 data, for more informative profiling results.
325 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
327 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
328 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
329 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
331 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
334 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
335 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
336 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
337 in a subsequent -var-update.
339 * New native configurations.
341 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
343 * Multi-arched targets.
345 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
346 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
348 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
350 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
351 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
352 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
355 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
356 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
357 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
358 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
359 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
360 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
361 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
362 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
363 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
364 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
365 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
366 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
368 * REMOVED configurations and files
371 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
372 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
373 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
374 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
375 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
376 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
378 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
379 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
380 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
381 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
382 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
383 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
385 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
387 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
388 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
389 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
390 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
391 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
393 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
395 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
397 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
398 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
399 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
400 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
401 shared libs like mad''.
403 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
405 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
406 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
407 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
408 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
410 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
412 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
413 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
416 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
417 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
419 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
420 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
422 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
423 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
424 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
425 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
427 * Multi-arched targets.
429 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
430 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
432 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
433 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
434 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
438 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
441 * New native configurations
443 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
444 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
445 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
446 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
448 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
450 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
451 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
452 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
455 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
456 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
457 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
458 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
459 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
460 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
461 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
462 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
463 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
464 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
466 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
467 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
471 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
473 * REMOVED configurations and files
475 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
476 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
477 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
478 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
479 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
481 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
483 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
485 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
486 commands. The default is 1024.
488 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
490 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
492 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
494 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
495 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
496 from a file into memory (restore).
498 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
500 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
501 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
502 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
504 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
512 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
513 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
514 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
516 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
517 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
518 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
520 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
521 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
522 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
524 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
525 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
526 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
528 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
530 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
532 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
533 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
534 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
535 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
536 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
537 (notably embedded) targets.
539 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
541 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
542 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
543 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
544 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
546 * New command line option
548 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
550 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
552 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
553 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
554 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
555 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
556 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
557 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
558 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
559 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
560 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
561 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
563 * Changes in ARM configurations.
565 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
566 configuration is fully multi-arch.
568 * New native configurations
570 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
571 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
572 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
573 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
577 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
579 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
581 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
582 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
583 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
586 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
587 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
588 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
589 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
590 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
592 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
594 * REMOVED configurations and files
596 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
598 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
599 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
600 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
601 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
602 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
603 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
604 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
605 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
606 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
607 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
608 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
610 * Changes to command line processing
612 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
613 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
615 * Changes to key bindings
617 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
619 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
621 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
623 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
626 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
628 Numerous documentation fixes.
630 Numerous testsuite fixes.
632 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
634 * New native configurations
636 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
637 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
638 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
639 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
641 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
645 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
647 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
649 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
651 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
652 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
653 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
654 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
655 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
657 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
658 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
659 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
660 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
661 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
662 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
663 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
664 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
666 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
667 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
669 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
670 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
671 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
674 * REMOVED configurations and files
676 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
677 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
679 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
683 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
685 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
686 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
691 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
693 * The MI enabled by default.
695 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
696 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
697 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
698 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
699 which is now deprecated.
701 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
703 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
704 main features are supported:
706 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
708 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
711 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
713 - a Pascal expression parser.
715 However, some important features are not yet supported.
717 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
719 - there are some problems with boolean types;
721 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
722 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
724 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
726 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
728 * Changes in completion.
730 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
731 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
732 users expect at the shell prompt.
734 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
735 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
736 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
737 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
738 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
739 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
740 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
742 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
744 * New platform-independent commands:
746 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
747 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
748 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
750 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
752 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
753 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
754 many threads as your system allows you to have.
756 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
758 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
759 multi-threaded programs though.
761 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
763 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
765 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
766 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
769 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
771 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
772 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
773 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
774 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
775 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
778 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
779 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
780 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
782 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
784 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
785 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
787 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
788 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
791 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
792 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
793 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
794 a given linear address.
796 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
797 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
798 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
800 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
802 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
804 * Changes in documentation.
806 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
807 Documentation License.
809 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
812 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
814 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
817 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
818 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
819 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
821 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
823 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
824 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
825 contents of this file.
829 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
831 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
833 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
835 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
836 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
837 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
838 greater level of detail.
840 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
842 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
843 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
844 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
847 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
849 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
850 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
851 machines ``out of the box''.
853 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
854 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
855 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
856 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
857 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
859 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
860 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
861 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
862 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
863 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
865 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
866 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
869 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
872 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
873 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
874 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
875 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
877 * New native configurations
879 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
880 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
884 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
885 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
886 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
887 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
889 * OBSOLETE configurations
891 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
892 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
894 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
897 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
898 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
899 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
900 be permanently REMOVED.
902 * Gould support removed
904 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
906 * New features for SVR4
908 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
909 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
910 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
912 * Many C++ enhancements
914 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
915 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
917 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
919 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
920 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
921 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
922 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
924 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
925 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
927 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
929 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
930 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
931 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
933 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
934 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
936 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
938 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
939 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
940 include ``set remote P-packet''.
942 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
944 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
945 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
946 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
948 * ``apropos'' command added.
950 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
951 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
952 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
956 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
957 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
958 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
959 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
960 enabled by configuring with:
962 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
964 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
966 * New native configurations
968 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
969 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
970 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
974 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
975 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
976 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
978 * OBSOLETE configurations
980 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
982 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
983 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
984 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
985 be permanently REMOVED.
989 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
990 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
991 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
992 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
993 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
994 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
995 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1000 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1002 * set extension-language
1004 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1005 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1006 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1007 set extension-language .c c++
1008 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1009 and their associated languages.
1011 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1013 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1014 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1015 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1019 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1020 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1022 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1023 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1025 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1026 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1027 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1028 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1029 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1030 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1031 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1032 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1034 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1035 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1036 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1037 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1041 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1042 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1043 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1044 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1045 for xdb and dbx commands.
1049 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1050 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1051 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1053 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1054 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1055 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1057 * Debugging across forks
1059 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1064 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1065 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1066 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1068 * GDB remote protocol additions
1070 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1071 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1072 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1073 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1075 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1076 full 64-bit address. The command
1078 set remoteaddresssize 32
1080 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1081 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1084 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1085 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1087 maint packet heythere
1089 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1090 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1093 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1094 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1095 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1097 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1099 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1100 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1101 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1103 * mask-address variable for Mips
1105 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1106 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1107 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1109 * Higher serial baud rates
1111 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1112 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1113 to achieve all of these rates.)
1117 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1118 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1121 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1123 * New native configurations
1125 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1126 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1127 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1128 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1129 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1130 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1131 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1135 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1136 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1137 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1138 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1139 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1140 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1141 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1142 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1143 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1144 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1145 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1147 * New debugging protocols
1149 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1150 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1151 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1152 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1153 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1154 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1158 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1159 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1164 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1165 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1167 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1169 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1170 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1171 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1173 * Live range splitting
1175 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1176 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1177 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1181 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1182 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1186 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1187 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1188 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1193 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1198 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1199 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1200 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1201 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1202 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1203 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1207 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1208 the symbol at the specified address.
1212 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1213 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1214 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1215 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1216 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1220 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1221 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1222 of most MIPS variants.
1226 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1227 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1228 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1232 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1233 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1234 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1235 the possible architectures.
1237 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1239 * New native configurations
1241 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1242 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1243 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1244 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1245 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1246 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1250 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1251 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1252 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1253 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1254 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1256 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1260 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1261 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1262 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1263 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1264 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1268 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1270 * Windows 95/NT native
1272 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1273 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1274 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1275 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1276 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1278 * dont-repeat command
1280 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1281 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1282 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1283 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1285 * Send break instead of ^C
1287 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1288 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1289 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1291 * Remote protocol timeout
1293 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1294 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1295 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1297 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1299 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1300 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1301 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1302 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1303 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1305 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1306 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1307 automatically on hpux10.
1309 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1311 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1313 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1315 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1316 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1317 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1318 every character. The default value is 1050.
1320 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1322 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1323 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1324 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1325 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1326 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1327 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1329 * Speedups for remote debugging
1331 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1332 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1333 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1335 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1337 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1338 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1340 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1342 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1344 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1345 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1347 * Remote targets use caching
1349 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1350 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1351 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1352 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1353 off' turns the the data cache off.
1355 * Remote targets may have threads
1357 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1358 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1359 gdb/remote.c for details.
1363 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1364 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1365 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1366 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1367 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1368 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1369 sequence is something like
1371 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1373 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1377 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1378 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1379 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1380 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1381 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1382 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1383 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1384 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1388 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1389 but does simplify configuration and building.
1393 GDB now supports hpux10.
1395 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1397 * New native configurations
1399 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1400 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1401 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1402 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1406 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1407 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1408 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1409 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1412 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1414 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1415 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1416 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1417 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1418 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1420 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1422 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1423 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1426 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1428 To execute the command use:
1431 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1432 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1433 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1435 * New `if' and `while' commands
1437 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1438 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1439 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1440 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1441 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1442 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1443 if the expression is zero.
1445 * Fortran source language mode
1447 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1448 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1449 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1450 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1453 * Better HPUX support
1455 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1456 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1457 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1458 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1459 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1465 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1466 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1472 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1473 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1476 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1477 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1479 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1481 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1482 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1483 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1484 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1485 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1486 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1488 * New DOS host serial code
1490 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1491 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1494 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1496 * New "complete" command
1498 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1499 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1501 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1503 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1504 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1506 * Breakpoint hit counts
1508 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1509 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1510 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1511 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1512 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1515 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1517 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1518 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1519 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1521 * Shared library breakpoints
1523 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1524 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1526 * Hardware watchpoints
1528 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1529 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1531 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1535 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1536 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1538 * Improved Irix 5 support
1540 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1542 * Improved HPPA support
1544 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1546 * New native configurations
1548 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1549 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1550 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1551 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1555 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1556 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1559 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1561 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1562 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1566 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1567 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1569 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1571 * Irix 5 is now supported
1575 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1576 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1577 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1578 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1579 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1582 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1584 * User visible changes:
1588 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1589 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1590 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1591 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1592 debugging info for the mips target).
1594 * DEC Alpha native support
1596 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1597 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1598 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1599 Alpha-specific notes.
1601 * Preliminary thread implementation
1603 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1605 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1607 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1608 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1611 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1613 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1614 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1615 call methods, ...etc.
1617 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1619 * User visible changes:
1621 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1622 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1623 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1624 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1626 Filename completion now works.
1628 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1629 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1630 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1632 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1633 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1634 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1635 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1636 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1640 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1641 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1644 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1648 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1649 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1650 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1654 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1655 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1656 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1657 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1658 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1662 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1663 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1664 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1666 * New targets supported
1668 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1669 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1670 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1671 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1672 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1674 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1675 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1676 GO32 memory extender.
1678 * New remote protocols
1680 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1682 * New source languages supported
1684 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1685 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1686 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1689 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1691 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1693 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1694 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1695 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1696 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1697 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1698 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1700 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1702 * Faster and better demangling
1704 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1705 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1706 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1707 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1708 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1709 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1712 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1713 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1714 compiler does not actually implement.
1716 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1718 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1719 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1720 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1721 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1722 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1723 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1726 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1727 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1729 * Improved configure script
1731 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1732 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1733 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1734 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1736 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1737 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1738 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1739 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1740 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1741 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1743 * Documentation improvements
1745 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1746 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1747 before submitting changes.
1749 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1750 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1751 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1752 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1753 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1755 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1756 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1757 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1758 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1759 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1760 around this problem.
1764 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1765 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1766 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1769 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1770 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1772 * New native hosts supported
1774 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1775 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1777 * New targets supported
1779 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1781 * New file formats supported
1783 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1784 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1788 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1790 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1791 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1793 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1794 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1795 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1797 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1798 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1800 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1801 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1802 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1805 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1806 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1807 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1808 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1809 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1811 * Internal improvements
1813 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1814 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1816 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1817 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1818 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1819 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1820 shared code that handles any of them.
1822 * New command line options
1824 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1828 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1829 General Public License.
1831 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1833 * Host/native/target split
1835 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1836 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1837 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1838 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1839 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1841 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1842 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1843 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1844 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1845 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1846 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1847 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1849 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1850 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1851 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1853 * New hosts supported
1855 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1856 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1857 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1859 * New targets supported
1861 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1862 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1864 * New native hosts supported
1866 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1867 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1868 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1870 * New file formats supported
1872 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1873 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1874 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1878 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1879 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1880 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1882 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1884 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1885 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1886 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1887 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1891 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1892 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1893 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1895 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1899 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1900 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1903 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1904 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1906 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1907 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1908 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1909 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1910 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1911 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1913 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1914 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1915 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1916 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1920 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1921 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1922 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1923 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1924 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1926 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1927 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1928 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1929 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1933 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1934 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1935 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1936 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1937 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1938 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1939 each instruction being stepped through.
1941 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1942 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1944 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1945 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1946 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1947 processor with a serial port.
1951 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1952 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1953 supported, and what files each one uses.
1957 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1958 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1959 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1960 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1962 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1963 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1964 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1965 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1969 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1970 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1971 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1972 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1973 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1974 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1976 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1979 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1981 * Better support for C++ function names
1983 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1984 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1985 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1986 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1987 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1989 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1990 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1991 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1992 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1993 for the list of formats.
1995 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1997 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1998 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1999 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2000 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2001 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2002 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2005 * New 'maintenance' command
2007 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2008 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2009 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2011 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2012 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2013 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2014 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2015 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2016 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2018 The following commands are new:
2020 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2021 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2022 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2024 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2026 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2027 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2028 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2029 read after argv processing.
2031 * New hosts supported
2033 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2035 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2037 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2038 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2039 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2040 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2041 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2044 * New targets supported
2046 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2048 * More smarts about finding #include files
2050 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2051 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2052 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2053 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2054 the one that contains your sources.
2056 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2057 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2058 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2060 * Interesting infernals change
2062 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2063 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2064 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2065 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2067 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2069 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2070 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2071 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2073 See the ChangeLog for details.
2075 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2077 * New machines supported (host and target)
2079 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2081 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2083 * New malloc package
2085 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2086 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2087 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2088 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2089 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2090 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2094 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2095 'help info proc' for details.
2097 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2099 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2100 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2103 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2105 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2106 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2107 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2108 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2109 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2110 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2112 * Cross byte order fixes
2114 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2115 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2117 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2119 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2120 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2121 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2122 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2123 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2124 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2125 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2126 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2127 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2128 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2130 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2131 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2132 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2133 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2135 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2136 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2137 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2140 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2142 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2143 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2144 shared across multiple host platforms.
2146 * longjmp() handling
2148 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2149 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2150 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2151 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2155 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2156 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2161 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2162 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2163 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2165 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2167 * New machines supported (host and target)
2169 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2171 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2172 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2174 * New machines supported (target)
2176 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2180 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2181 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2182 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2184 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2185 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2186 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2187 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2188 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2191 * New features for SVR4
2193 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2194 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2195 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2197 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2198 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2199 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2201 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2202 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2204 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2206 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2207 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2208 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2209 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2210 same code linked statically.
2214 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2215 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2216 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2217 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2218 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2219 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2223 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2224 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2225 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2228 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2230 * New machines supported (host and target)
2232 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2233 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2234 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2236 * Almost SCO Unix support
2238 We had hoped to support:
2239 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2240 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2241 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2242 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2244 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2246 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2247 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2248 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2249 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2254 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2255 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2256 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2260 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2261 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2262 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2264 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2266 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2267 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2268 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2270 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2271 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2272 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2273 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2276 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2277 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2278 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2279 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2282 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2283 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2286 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2287 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2288 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2291 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2293 * Improved configuration
2295 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2296 Porting BFD is simpler.
2300 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2301 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2302 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2303 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2307 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2309 * New host supported (not target)
2311 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2314 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2316 * Multiple source language support
2318 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2319 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2320 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2321 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2322 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2323 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2327 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2328 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2329 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2330 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2332 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2333 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2334 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2336 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2337 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2341 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2342 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2343 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2344 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2347 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2349 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2350 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2351 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2352 examining core files.
2356 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2359 * New machines supported (host and target)
2361 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2362 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2363 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2365 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2367 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2369 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2371 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2372 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2373 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2375 * New remote interfaces
2381 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2385 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2387 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2388 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2389 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2390 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2391 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2392 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2393 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2394 stub on the target system.
2396 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2398 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2399 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2400 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2402 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2403 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2406 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2408 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2409 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2411 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2412 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2413 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2415 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2416 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2417 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2418 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2420 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2421 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2422 it is already running. Default is ON.
2424 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2425 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2426 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2427 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2430 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2431 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2432 or the value of the environment variable
2435 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2436 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2439 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2440 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2441 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2443 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2444 history expansion will be performed on
2445 command line input. The default is OFF.
2447 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2448 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2449 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2451 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2452 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2453 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2456 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2457 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2458 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2461 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2462 ``set width'' instead.
2464 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2465 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2466 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2467 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2469 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2472 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2475 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2478 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2481 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2483 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2484 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2485 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2489 * Support for Shared Libraries
2491 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2492 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2493 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2494 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2495 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2496 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2497 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2498 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2500 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2501 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2502 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2504 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2509 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2510 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2511 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2512 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2513 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2514 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2516 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2518 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2520 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2521 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2522 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2525 * C++ multiple inheritance
2527 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2530 * C++ exception handling
2532 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2533 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2534 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2537 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2538 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2539 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2541 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2542 current stack frame.
2545 * Minor command changes
2547 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2548 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2549 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2551 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2552 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2553 frames without printing.
2555 * New directory command
2557 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2558 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2559 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2560 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2561 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2563 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2565 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2568 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2569 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2570 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2571 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob