1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB-4.18:
10 * OBSOLETE configurations
12 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
16 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
18 * New native configurations
20 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
21 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
22 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
26 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
27 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
28 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
30 * OBSOLETE configurations
32 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
34 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
35 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
36 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
37 be permanently REMOVED.
41 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
42 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
43 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
44 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
45 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
46 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
47 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
52 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
54 * set extension-language
56 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
57 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
58 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
59 set extension-language .c c++
60 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
61 and their associated languages.
63 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
65 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
66 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
67 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
71 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
72 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
74 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
75 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
77 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
78 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
79 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
80 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
81 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
82 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
83 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
84 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
86 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
87 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
88 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
89 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
93 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
94 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
95 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
96 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
97 for xdb and dbx commands.
101 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
102 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
103 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
105 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
106 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
107 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
109 * Debugging across forks
111 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
116 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
117 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
118 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
120 * GDB remote protocol additions
122 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
123 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
124 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
125 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
127 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
128 full 64-bit address. The command
130 set remoteaddresssize 32
132 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
133 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
136 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
137 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
139 maint packet heythere
141 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
142 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
145 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
146 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
147 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
149 * Tracing can collect general expressions
151 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
152 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
153 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
155 * mask-address variable for Mips
157 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
158 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
159 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
161 * Higher serial baud rates
163 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
164 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
165 to achieve all of these rates.)
169 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
170 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
173 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
175 * New native configurations
177 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
178 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
179 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
180 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
181 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
182 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
183 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
187 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
188 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
189 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
190 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
191 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
192 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
193 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
194 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
195 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
196 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
197 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
199 * New debugging protocols
201 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
202 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
203 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
204 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
205 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
206 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
210 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
211 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
216 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
217 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
219 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
221 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
222 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
223 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
225 * Live range splitting
227 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
228 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
229 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
233 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
234 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
238 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
239 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
240 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
245 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
250 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
251 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
252 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
253 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
254 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
255 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
259 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
260 the symbol at the specified address.
264 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
265 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
266 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
267 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
268 file tracepoint.c for more details.
272 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
273 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
274 of most MIPS variants.
278 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
279 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
280 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
284 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
285 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
286 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
287 the possible architectures.
289 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
291 * New native configurations
293 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
294 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
295 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
296 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
297 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
298 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
302 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
303 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
304 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
305 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
306 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
308 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
312 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
313 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
314 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
315 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
316 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
320 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
322 * Windows 95/NT native
324 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
325 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
326 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
327 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
328 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
330 * dont-repeat command
332 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
333 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
334 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
335 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
337 * Send break instead of ^C
339 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
340 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
341 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
343 * Remote protocol timeout
345 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
346 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
347 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
349 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
351 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
352 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
353 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
354 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
355 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
357 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
358 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
359 automatically on hpux10.
361 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
363 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
365 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
367 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
368 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
369 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
370 every character. The default value is 1050.
372 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
374 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
375 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
376 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
377 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
378 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
379 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
381 * Speedups for remote debugging
383 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
384 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
385 and more efficient S-record downloading.
387 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
389 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
390 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
392 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
396 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
397 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
399 * Remote targets use caching
401 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
402 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
403 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
404 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
405 off' turns the the data cache off.
407 * Remote targets may have threads
409 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
410 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
411 gdb/remote.c for details.
415 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
416 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
417 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
418 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
419 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
420 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
421 sequence is something like
423 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
425 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
429 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
430 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
431 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
432 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
433 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
434 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
435 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
436 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
440 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
441 but does simplify configuration and building.
445 GDB now supports hpux10.
447 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
449 * New native configurations
451 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
452 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
453 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
454 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
458 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
459 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
460 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
461 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
464 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
466 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
467 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
468 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
469 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
470 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
472 * Arguments to user-defined commands
474 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
475 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
478 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
480 To execute the command use:
483 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
484 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
485 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
487 * New `if' and `while' commands
489 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
490 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
491 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
492 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
493 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
494 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
495 if the expression is zero.
497 * Fortran source language mode
499 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
500 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
501 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
502 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
505 * Better HPUX support
507 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
508 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
509 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
510 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
511 that behavior do the following before running the program:
517 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
518 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
524 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
525 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
528 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
529 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
531 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
533 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
534 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
535 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
536 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
537 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
538 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
540 * New DOS host serial code
542 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
543 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
546 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
548 * New "complete" command
550 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
551 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
553 * Trailing space optional in prompt
555 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
556 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
558 * Breakpoint hit counts
560 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
561 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
562 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
563 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
564 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
567 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
569 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
570 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
571 arrays actually contain only short strings.
573 * Shared library breakpoints
575 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
576 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
578 * Hardware watchpoints
580 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
581 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
583 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
587 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
588 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
590 * Improved Irix 5 support
592 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
594 * Improved HPPA support
596 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
598 * New native configurations
600 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
601 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
602 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
603 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
607 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
608 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
611 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
613 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
614 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
618 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
619 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
621 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
623 * Irix 5 is now supported
627 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
628 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
629 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
630 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
631 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
634 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
636 * User visible changes:
640 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
641 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
642 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
643 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
644 debugging info for the mips target).
646 * DEC Alpha native support
648 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
649 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
650 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
651 Alpha-specific notes.
653 * Preliminary thread implementation
655 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
657 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
659 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
660 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
663 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
665 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
666 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
667 call methods, ...etc.
669 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
671 * User visible changes:
673 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
674 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
675 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
676 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
678 Filename completion now works.
680 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
681 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
682 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
684 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
685 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
686 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
687 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
688 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
692 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
693 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
696 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
700 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
701 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
702 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
706 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
707 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
708 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
709 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
710 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
714 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
715 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
716 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
718 * New targets supported
720 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
721 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
722 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
723 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
724 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
726 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
727 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
728 GO32 memory extender.
730 * New remote protocols
732 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
734 * New source languages supported
736 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
737 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
738 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
741 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
743 * HP Precision Architecture supported
745 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
746 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
747 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
748 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
749 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
750 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
752 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
754 * Faster and better demangling
756 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
757 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
758 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
759 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
760 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
761 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
764 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
765 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
766 compiler does not actually implement.
768 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
770 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
771 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
772 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
773 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
774 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
775 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
778 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
779 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
781 * Improved configure script
783 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
784 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
785 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
786 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
788 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
789 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
790 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
791 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
792 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
793 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
795 * Documentation improvements
797 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
798 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
799 before submitting changes.
801 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
802 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
803 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
804 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
805 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
807 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
808 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
809 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
810 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
811 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
816 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
817 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
818 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
821 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
822 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
824 * New native hosts supported
826 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
827 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
829 * New targets supported
831 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
833 * New file formats supported
835 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
836 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
840 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
842 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
843 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
845 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
846 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
847 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
849 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
850 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
852 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
853 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
854 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
857 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
858 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
859 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
860 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
861 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
863 * Internal improvements
865 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
866 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
868 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
869 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
870 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
871 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
872 shared code that handles any of them.
874 * New command line options
876 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
880 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
881 General Public License.
883 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
885 * Host/native/target split
887 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
888 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
889 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
890 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
891 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
893 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
894 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
895 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
896 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
897 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
898 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
899 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
901 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
902 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
903 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
905 * New hosts supported
907 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
908 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
909 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
911 * New targets supported
913 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
914 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
916 * New native hosts supported
918 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
919 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
920 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
922 * New file formats supported
924 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
925 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
926 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
930 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
931 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
932 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
934 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
936 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
937 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
938 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
939 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
943 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
944 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
945 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
947 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
951 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
952 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
955 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
956 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
958 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
959 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
960 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
961 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
962 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
963 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
965 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
966 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
967 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
968 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
972 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
973 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
974 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
975 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
976 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
978 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
979 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
980 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
981 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
985 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
986 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
987 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
988 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
989 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
990 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
991 each instruction being stepped through.
993 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
994 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
996 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
997 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
998 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
999 processor with a serial port.
1003 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1004 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1005 supported, and what files each one uses.
1009 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1010 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1011 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1012 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1014 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1015 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1016 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1017 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1021 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1022 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1023 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1024 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1025 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1026 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1028 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1031 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1033 * Better support for C++ function names
1035 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1036 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1037 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1038 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1039 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1041 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1042 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1043 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1044 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1045 for the list of formats.
1047 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1049 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1050 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1051 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1052 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1053 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1054 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1057 * New 'maintenance' command
1059 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1060 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1061 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1063 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1064 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1065 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1066 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1067 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1068 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1070 The following commands are new:
1072 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1073 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1074 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1076 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1078 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1079 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1080 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1081 read after argv processing.
1083 * New hosts supported
1085 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1087 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1089 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1090 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1091 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1092 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1093 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1096 * New targets supported
1098 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1100 * More smarts about finding #include files
1102 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1103 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1104 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1105 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1106 the one that contains your sources.
1108 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1109 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1110 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1112 * Interesting infernals change
1114 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1115 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1116 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1117 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1119 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1121 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1122 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1123 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1125 See the ChangeLog for details.
1127 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1129 * New machines supported (host and target)
1131 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1133 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1135 * New malloc package
1137 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1138 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1139 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1140 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1141 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1142 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1146 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1147 'help info proc' for details.
1149 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1151 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1152 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1155 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1157 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1158 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1159 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1160 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1161 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1162 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1164 * Cross byte order fixes
1166 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1167 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1169 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1171 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1172 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1173 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1174 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1175 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1176 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1177 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1178 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1179 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1180 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1182 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1183 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1184 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1185 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1187 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1188 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1189 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1192 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1194 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1195 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1196 shared across multiple host platforms.
1198 * longjmp() handling
1200 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1201 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1202 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1203 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1207 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1208 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1213 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1214 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1215 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1217 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1219 * New machines supported (host and target)
1221 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1223 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1224 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1226 * New machines supported (target)
1228 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1232 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1233 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1234 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1236 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1237 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1238 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1239 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1240 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1243 * New features for SVR4
1245 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1246 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1247 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1249 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1250 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1251 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1253 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1254 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1256 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1258 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1259 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1260 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1261 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1262 same code linked statically.
1266 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1267 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1268 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1269 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1270 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1271 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1275 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1276 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1277 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1280 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1282 * New machines supported (host and target)
1284 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1285 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1286 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1288 * Almost SCO Unix support
1290 We had hoped to support:
1291 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1292 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1293 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1294 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1296 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1298 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1299 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1300 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1301 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1306 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1307 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1308 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1312 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1313 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1314 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1316 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1318 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1319 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1320 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1322 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1323 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1324 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1325 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1328 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1329 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1330 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1331 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1334 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1335 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1338 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1339 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1340 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1343 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1345 * Improved configuration
1347 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1348 Porting BFD is simpler.
1352 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1353 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1354 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1355 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1359 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1361 * New host supported (not target)
1363 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1366 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1368 * Multiple source language support
1370 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1371 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1372 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1373 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1374 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1375 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1379 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1380 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1381 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1382 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1384 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1385 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1386 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1388 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1389 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1393 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1394 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1395 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1396 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1399 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1401 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1402 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1403 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1404 examining core files.
1408 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1411 * New machines supported (host and target)
1413 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1414 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1415 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1417 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1419 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1421 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1423 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1424 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1425 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1427 * New remote interfaces
1433 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1437 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1439 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1440 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1441 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1442 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1443 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1444 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1445 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1446 stub on the target system.
1448 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1450 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1451 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1452 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1454 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1455 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1458 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1460 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1461 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1463 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1464 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1465 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1467 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1468 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1469 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1470 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1472 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1473 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1474 it is already running. Default is ON.
1476 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1477 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1478 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1479 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1482 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1483 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1484 or the value of the environment variable
1487 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1488 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1491 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1492 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1493 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1495 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1496 history expansion will be performed on
1497 command line input. The default is OFF.
1499 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1500 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1501 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1503 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1504 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1505 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1508 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1509 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1510 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1513 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1514 ``set width'' instead.
1516 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1517 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1518 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1519 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1521 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1524 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1527 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1530 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1533 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1535 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1536 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1537 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1541 * Support for Shared Libraries
1543 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1544 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1545 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1546 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1547 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1548 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1549 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1550 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1552 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1553 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1554 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1556 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1561 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1562 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1563 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1564 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1565 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1566 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1568 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1570 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1572 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1573 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1574 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1577 * C++ multiple inheritance
1579 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1582 * C++ exception handling
1584 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1585 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1586 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1589 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1590 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1591 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1593 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1594 current stack frame.
1597 * Minor command changes
1599 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1600 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1601 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1603 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1604 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1605 frames without printing.
1607 * New directory command
1609 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1610 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1611 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1612 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1613 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1615 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1617 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1620 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1621 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1622 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1623 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob