1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.1:
6 * New native configurations
8 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
12 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
14 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
16 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
17 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
18 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
21 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
22 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
23 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
24 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
25 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
28 * REMOVED configurations and files
30 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
32 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
33 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
34 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
35 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
36 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
37 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
38 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
39 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
40 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
41 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
42 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
44 * Changes to command line processing
46 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
47 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
49 * Changes to key bindings
51 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
53 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
55 * New native configurations
57 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
58 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
59 MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
60 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
62 s390 and s390x Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
66 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
68 UltraSparc running Linux sparc64-*-linux*
70 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
72 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
73 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
74 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
75 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
78 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
79 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
80 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
81 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
82 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
83 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
84 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
85 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
87 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
88 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
90 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
91 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
92 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
95 * REMOVED configurations and files
97 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
100 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
106 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
107 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
112 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
114 * The MI enabled by default.
116 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
117 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
118 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
119 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
120 which is now deprecated.
122 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
124 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
125 main features are supported:
127 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
129 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
132 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
134 - a Pascal expression parser.
136 However, some important features are not yet supported.
138 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
140 - there are some problems with boolean types;
142 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
143 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
145 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
147 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
149 * Changes in completion.
151 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
152 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
153 users expect at the shell prompt.
155 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
156 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
157 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
158 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
159 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
160 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
161 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
163 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
165 * New platform-independent commands:
167 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
168 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
169 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
171 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
173 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
174 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
175 many threads as your system allows you to have.
177 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
179 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
180 multi-threaded programs though.
182 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
184 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
186 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
187 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
190 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
192 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
193 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
194 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
195 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
196 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
199 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
200 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
201 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
203 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
205 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
206 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
208 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
209 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
212 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
213 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
214 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
215 a given linear address.
217 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
218 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
219 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
221 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
223 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
225 * Changes in documentation.
227 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
228 Documentation License.
230 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
233 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
235 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
238 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
239 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
240 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
242 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
244 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
245 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
246 contents of this file.
250 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
252 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
254 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
256 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
257 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
258 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
259 greater level of detail.
261 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
263 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
264 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
265 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
268 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
270 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
271 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
272 machines ``out of the box''.
274 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
275 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
276 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
277 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
278 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
280 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
281 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
282 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
283 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
284 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
286 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
287 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
290 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
293 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
294 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
295 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
296 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
298 * New native configurations
300 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
301 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
305 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
306 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
307 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
308 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
310 * OBSOLETE configurations
312 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
313 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
315 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
318 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
319 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
320 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
321 be permanently REMOVED.
323 * Gould support removed
325 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
327 * New features for SVR4
329 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
330 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
331 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
333 * Many C++ enhancements
335 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
336 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
338 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
340 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
341 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
342 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
343 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
345 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
346 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
348 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
350 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
351 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
352 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
354 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
355 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
357 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
359 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
360 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
361 include ``set remote P-packet''.
363 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
365 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
366 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
367 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
369 * ``apropos'' command added.
371 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
372 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
373 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
377 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
378 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
379 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
380 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
381 enabled by configuring with:
383 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
385 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
387 * New native configurations
389 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
390 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
391 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
395 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
396 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
397 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
399 * OBSOLETE configurations
401 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
403 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
404 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
405 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
406 be permanently REMOVED.
410 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
411 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
412 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
413 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
414 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
415 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
416 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
421 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
423 * set extension-language
425 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
426 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
427 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
428 set extension-language .c c++
429 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
430 and their associated languages.
432 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
434 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
435 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
436 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
440 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
441 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
443 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
444 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
446 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
447 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
448 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
449 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
450 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
451 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
452 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
453 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
455 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
456 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
457 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
458 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
462 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
463 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
464 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
465 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
466 for xdb and dbx commands.
470 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
471 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
472 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
474 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
475 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
476 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
478 * Debugging across forks
480 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
485 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
486 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
487 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
489 * GDB remote protocol additions
491 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
492 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
493 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
494 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
496 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
497 full 64-bit address. The command
499 set remoteaddresssize 32
501 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
502 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
505 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
506 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
508 maint packet heythere
510 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
511 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
514 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
515 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
516 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
518 * Tracing can collect general expressions
520 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
521 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
522 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
524 * mask-address variable for Mips
526 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
527 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
528 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
530 * Higher serial baud rates
532 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
533 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
534 to achieve all of these rates.)
538 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
539 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
542 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
544 * New native configurations
546 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
547 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
548 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
549 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
550 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
551 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
552 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
556 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
557 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
558 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
559 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
560 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
561 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
562 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
563 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
564 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
565 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
566 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
568 * New debugging protocols
570 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
571 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
572 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
573 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
574 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
575 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
579 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
580 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
585 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
586 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
588 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
590 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
591 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
592 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
594 * Live range splitting
596 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
597 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
598 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
602 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
603 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
607 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
608 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
609 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
614 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
619 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
620 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
621 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
622 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
623 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
624 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
628 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
629 the symbol at the specified address.
633 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
634 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
635 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
636 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
637 file tracepoint.c for more details.
641 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
642 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
643 of most MIPS variants.
647 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
648 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
649 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
653 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
654 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
655 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
656 the possible architectures.
658 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
660 * New native configurations
662 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
663 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
664 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
665 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
666 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
667 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
671 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
672 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
673 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
674 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
675 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
677 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
681 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
682 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
683 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
684 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
685 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
689 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
691 * Windows 95/NT native
693 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
694 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
695 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
696 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
697 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
699 * dont-repeat command
701 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
702 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
703 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
704 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
706 * Send break instead of ^C
708 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
709 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
710 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
712 * Remote protocol timeout
714 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
715 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
716 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
718 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
720 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
721 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
722 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
723 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
724 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
726 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
727 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
728 automatically on hpux10.
730 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
732 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
734 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
736 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
737 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
738 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
739 every character. The default value is 1050.
741 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
743 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
744 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
745 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
746 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
747 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
748 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
750 * Speedups for remote debugging
752 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
753 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
754 and more efficient S-record downloading.
756 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
758 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
759 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
761 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
765 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
766 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
768 * Remote targets use caching
770 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
771 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
772 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
773 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
774 off' turns the the data cache off.
776 * Remote targets may have threads
778 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
779 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
780 gdb/remote.c for details.
784 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
785 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
786 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
787 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
788 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
789 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
790 sequence is something like
792 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
794 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
798 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
799 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
800 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
801 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
802 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
803 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
804 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
805 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
809 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
810 but does simplify configuration and building.
814 GDB now supports hpux10.
816 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
818 * New native configurations
820 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
821 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
822 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
823 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
827 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
828 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
829 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
830 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
833 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
835 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
836 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
837 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
838 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
839 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
841 * Arguments to user-defined commands
843 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
844 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
847 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
849 To execute the command use:
852 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
853 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
854 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
856 * New `if' and `while' commands
858 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
859 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
860 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
861 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
862 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
863 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
864 if the expression is zero.
866 * Fortran source language mode
868 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
869 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
870 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
871 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
874 * Better HPUX support
876 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
877 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
878 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
879 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
880 that behavior do the following before running the program:
886 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
887 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
893 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
894 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
897 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
898 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
900 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
902 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
903 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
904 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
905 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
906 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
907 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
909 * New DOS host serial code
911 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
912 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
915 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
917 * New "complete" command
919 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
920 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
922 * Trailing space optional in prompt
924 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
925 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
927 * Breakpoint hit counts
929 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
930 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
931 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
932 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
933 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
936 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
938 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
939 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
940 arrays actually contain only short strings.
942 * Shared library breakpoints
944 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
945 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
947 * Hardware watchpoints
949 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
950 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
952 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
956 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
957 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
959 * Improved Irix 5 support
961 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
963 * Improved HPPA support
965 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
967 * New native configurations
969 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
970 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
971 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
972 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
976 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
977 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
980 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
982 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
983 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
987 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
988 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
990 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
992 * Irix 5 is now supported
996 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
997 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
998 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
999 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1000 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1003 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1005 * User visible changes:
1009 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1010 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1011 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1012 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1013 debugging info for the mips target).
1015 * DEC Alpha native support
1017 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1018 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1019 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1020 Alpha-specific notes.
1022 * Preliminary thread implementation
1024 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1026 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1028 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1029 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1032 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1034 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1035 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1036 call methods, ...etc.
1038 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1040 * User visible changes:
1042 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1043 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1044 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1045 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1047 Filename completion now works.
1049 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1050 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1051 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1053 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1054 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1055 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1056 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1057 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1061 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1062 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1065 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1069 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1070 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1071 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1075 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1076 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1077 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1078 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1079 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1083 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1084 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1085 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1087 * New targets supported
1089 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1090 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1091 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1092 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1093 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1095 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1096 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1097 GO32 memory extender.
1099 * New remote protocols
1101 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1103 * New source languages supported
1105 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1106 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1107 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1110 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1112 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1114 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1115 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1116 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1117 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1118 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1119 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1121 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1123 * Faster and better demangling
1125 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1126 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1127 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1128 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1129 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1130 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1133 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1134 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1135 compiler does not actually implement.
1137 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1139 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1140 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1141 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1142 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1143 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1144 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1147 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1148 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1150 * Improved configure script
1152 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1153 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1154 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1155 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1157 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1158 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1159 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1160 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1161 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1162 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1164 * Documentation improvements
1166 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1167 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1168 before submitting changes.
1170 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1171 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1172 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1173 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1174 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1176 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1177 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1178 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1179 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1180 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1181 around this problem.
1185 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1186 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1187 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1190 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1191 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1193 * New native hosts supported
1195 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1196 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1198 * New targets supported
1200 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1202 * New file formats supported
1204 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1205 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1209 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1211 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1212 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1214 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1215 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1216 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1218 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1219 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1221 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1222 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1223 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1226 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1227 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1228 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1229 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1230 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1232 * Internal improvements
1234 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1235 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1237 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1238 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1239 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1240 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1241 shared code that handles any of them.
1243 * New command line options
1245 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1249 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1250 General Public License.
1252 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1254 * Host/native/target split
1256 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1257 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1258 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1259 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1260 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1262 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1263 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1264 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1265 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1266 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1267 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1268 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1270 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1271 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1272 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1274 * New hosts supported
1276 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1277 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1278 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1280 * New targets supported
1282 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1283 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1285 * New native hosts supported
1287 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1288 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1289 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1291 * New file formats supported
1293 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1294 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1295 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1299 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1300 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1301 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1303 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1305 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1306 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1307 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1308 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1312 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1313 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1314 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1316 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1320 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1321 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1324 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1325 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1327 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1328 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1329 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1330 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1331 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1332 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1334 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1335 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1336 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1337 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1341 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1342 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1343 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1344 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1345 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1347 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1348 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1349 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1350 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1354 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1355 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1356 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1357 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1358 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1359 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1360 each instruction being stepped through.
1362 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1363 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1365 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1366 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1367 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1368 processor with a serial port.
1372 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1373 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1374 supported, and what files each one uses.
1378 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1379 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1380 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1381 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1383 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1384 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1385 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1386 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1390 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1391 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1392 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1393 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1394 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1395 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1397 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1400 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1402 * Better support for C++ function names
1404 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1405 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1406 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1407 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1408 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1410 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1411 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1412 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1413 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1414 for the list of formats.
1416 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1418 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1419 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1420 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1421 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1422 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1423 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1426 * New 'maintenance' command
1428 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1429 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1430 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1432 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1433 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1434 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1435 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1436 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1437 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1439 The following commands are new:
1441 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1442 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1443 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1445 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1447 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1448 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1449 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1450 read after argv processing.
1452 * New hosts supported
1454 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1456 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1458 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1459 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1460 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1461 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1462 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1465 * New targets supported
1467 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1469 * More smarts about finding #include files
1471 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1472 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1473 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1474 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1475 the one that contains your sources.
1477 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1478 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1479 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1481 * Interesting infernals change
1483 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1484 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1485 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1486 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1488 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1490 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1491 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1492 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1494 See the ChangeLog for details.
1496 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1498 * New machines supported (host and target)
1500 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1502 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1504 * New malloc package
1506 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1507 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1508 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1509 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1510 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1511 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1515 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1516 'help info proc' for details.
1518 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1520 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1521 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1524 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1526 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1527 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1528 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1529 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1530 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1531 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1533 * Cross byte order fixes
1535 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1536 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1538 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1540 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1541 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1542 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1543 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1544 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1545 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1546 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1547 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1548 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1549 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1551 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1552 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1553 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1554 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1556 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1557 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1558 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1561 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1563 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1564 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1565 shared across multiple host platforms.
1567 * longjmp() handling
1569 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1570 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1571 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1572 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1576 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1577 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1582 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1583 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1584 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1586 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1588 * New machines supported (host and target)
1590 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1592 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1593 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1595 * New machines supported (target)
1597 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1601 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1602 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1603 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1605 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1606 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1607 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1608 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1609 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1612 * New features for SVR4
1614 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1615 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1616 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1618 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1619 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1620 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1622 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1623 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1625 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1627 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1628 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1629 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1630 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1631 same code linked statically.
1635 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1636 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1637 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1638 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1639 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1640 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1644 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1645 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1646 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1649 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1651 * New machines supported (host and target)
1653 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1654 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1655 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1657 * Almost SCO Unix support
1659 We had hoped to support:
1660 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1661 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1662 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1663 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1665 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1667 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1668 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1669 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1670 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1675 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1676 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1677 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1681 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1682 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1683 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1685 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1687 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1688 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1689 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1691 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1692 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1693 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1694 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1697 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1698 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1699 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1700 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1703 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1704 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1707 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1708 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1709 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1712 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1714 * Improved configuration
1716 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1717 Porting BFD is simpler.
1721 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1722 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1723 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1724 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1728 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1730 * New host supported (not target)
1732 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1735 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1737 * Multiple source language support
1739 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1740 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1741 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1742 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1743 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1744 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1748 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1749 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1750 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1751 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1753 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1754 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1755 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1757 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1758 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1762 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1763 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1764 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1765 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1768 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1770 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1771 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1772 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1773 examining core files.
1777 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1780 * New machines supported (host and target)
1782 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1783 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1784 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1786 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1788 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1790 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1792 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1793 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1794 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1796 * New remote interfaces
1802 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1806 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1808 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1809 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1810 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1811 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1812 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1813 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1814 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1815 stub on the target system.
1817 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1819 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1820 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1821 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1823 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1824 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1827 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1829 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1830 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1832 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1833 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1834 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1836 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1837 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1838 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1839 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1841 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1842 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1843 it is already running. Default is ON.
1845 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1846 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1847 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1848 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1851 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1852 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1853 or the value of the environment variable
1856 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1857 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1860 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1861 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1862 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1864 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1865 history expansion will be performed on
1866 command line input. The default is OFF.
1868 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1869 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1870 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1872 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1873 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1874 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1877 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1878 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1879 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1882 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1883 ``set width'' instead.
1885 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1886 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1887 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1888 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1890 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1893 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1896 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1899 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1902 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1904 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1905 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1906 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1910 * Support for Shared Libraries
1912 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1913 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1914 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1915 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1916 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1917 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1918 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1919 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1921 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1922 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1923 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1925 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1930 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1931 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1932 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1933 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1934 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1935 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1937 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1939 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1941 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1942 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1943 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1946 * C++ multiple inheritance
1948 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1951 * C++ exception handling
1953 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1954 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1955 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1958 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1959 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1960 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1962 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1963 current stack frame.
1966 * Minor command changes
1968 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1969 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1970 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1972 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1973 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1974 frames without printing.
1976 * New directory command
1978 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1979 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1980 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1981 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1982 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1984 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1986 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1989 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1990 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1991 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1992 where the program that you are debugging will run.