1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
7 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
8 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
9 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
10 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
11 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
12 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
13 the installation instructions for more information.
15 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
16 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
17 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
18 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
20 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
21 now complete on file names.
23 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
24 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
25 For instance, consider:
27 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
28 # struct example variable;
31 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
32 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
34 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
35 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
38 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
39 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
40 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
45 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
48 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
49 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
50 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
53 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
54 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
57 Obtains additional operating system information
61 Read or write additional signal information.
63 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
65 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
66 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
67 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
69 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
72 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
73 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
75 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
76 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
77 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
79 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
80 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
82 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
84 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
86 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
87 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
89 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
90 list of section offsets.
92 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
93 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
96 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
97 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
98 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
100 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
103 template<typename T> class C { };
106 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
108 ptype C<char const *>
110 ptype C<const char *>
113 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
115 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
116 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
118 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
119 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
120 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
122 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
123 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
125 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
130 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
131 available is determined at configure time.
133 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
135 * Ada tasking support
137 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
141 Print the list of Ada tasks.
143 Print detailed information about task number N.
145 Print the task number of the current task.
147 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
149 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
150 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
152 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
154 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
156 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
158 maint set python print-stack
159 maint show python print-stack
160 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
163 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
168 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
172 Show operating system information about processes.
176 set sh calling-convention
177 show sh calling-convention
178 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
180 set print symbol-loading
181 show print symbol-loading
182 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
186 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
188 set disassemble-next-line
189 show disassemble-next-line
190 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
193 set remote noack-packet
194 show remote noack-packet
195 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
196 under "New remote packets."
198 set remote query-attached-packet
199 show remote query-attached-packet
200 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
202 set remote read-siginfo-object
203 show remote read-siginfo-object
204 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
207 set remote write-siginfo-object
208 show remote write-siginfo-object
209 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
212 set displaced-stepping
213 show displaced-stepping
214 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
215 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
216 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
220 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
222 maint set internal-error
223 maint show internal-error
224 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
226 maint set internal-warning
227 maint show internal-warning
228 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
233 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
235 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
236 show multiple-symbols
237 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
238 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
239 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
241 set breakpoint always-inserted
242 show breakpoint always-inserted
243 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
244 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
245 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
247 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
248 show arm fallback-mode
249 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
251 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
252 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
253 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
254 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
256 set disable-randomization
257 show disable-randomization
258 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
259 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
260 multiple debugging sessions.
264 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
269 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
270 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
271 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
272 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
274 set target-wide-charset
275 show target-wide-charset
276 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
277 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
279 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
281 set tcp connect-timeout
282 show tcp connect-timeout
283 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
284 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
285 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
287 * New native configurations
289 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
291 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
295 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
296 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
302 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
304 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
306 * New native configurations
308 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
309 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
313 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
314 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
316 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
318 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
319 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
320 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
321 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
323 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
324 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
326 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
329 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
330 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
331 and in inlined functions.
333 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
334 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
335 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
337 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
339 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
340 registers on PowerPC targets.
342 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
343 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
345 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
346 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
348 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
349 extended-remote mode.
351 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
352 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
353 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
354 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
356 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
357 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
358 target architectures.
360 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
361 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
362 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
363 stored in two consecutive float registers.
365 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
368 * Improved support for debugging Ada
369 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
371 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
372 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
373 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
374 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
376 - Improved command completion in Ada
379 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
384 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
385 show print frame-arguments
386 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
387 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
392 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
399 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
408 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
411 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
415 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
417 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
419 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
420 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
421 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
423 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
424 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
425 -Bsymbolic linker option.
427 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
428 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
431 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
432 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
434 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
435 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
437 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
439 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
440 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
441 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
443 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
444 automatically displayed as character or string data.
446 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
447 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
450 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
451 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
452 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
454 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
457 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
458 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
459 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
461 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
463 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
465 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
466 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
467 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
469 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
470 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
472 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
473 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
474 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
475 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
476 Windows and SymbianOS).
478 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
479 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
481 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
482 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
488 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
489 when debugging using remote targets.
491 set mem inaccessible-by-default
492 show mem inaccessible-by-default
493 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
494 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
495 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
496 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
497 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
499 set breakpoint auto-hw
500 show breakpoint auto-hw
501 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
502 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
503 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
504 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
505 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
506 including "next" and "finish".
509 catch exception unhandled
510 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
513 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
517 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
518 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
519 an alias to "set sysroot".
522 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
523 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
526 * New native configurations
528 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
533 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
534 not query the target for its built-in description.
538 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
539 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
540 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
545 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
546 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
549 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
554 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
555 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
557 qXfer:libraries:read:
558 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
559 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
560 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
561 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
565 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
574 i[34567]86-*-netware*
575 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
576 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
578 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
581 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
582 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
591 * Other removed features
598 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
605 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
610 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
611 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
616 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
617 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
619 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
621 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
622 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
623 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
624 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
628 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
629 in debugging information.
633 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
634 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
636 set mips stack-arg-size
637 set mips saved-gpreg-size
639 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
641 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
646 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
648 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
649 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
650 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
652 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
653 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
656 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
657 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
659 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
660 stub provides the required support.
662 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
663 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
668 unset substitute-path
670 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
671 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
672 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
673 between compilation and debugging.
677 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
678 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
679 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
683 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
685 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
686 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
688 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
693 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
694 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
695 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
696 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
700 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
701 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
703 qXfer:memory-map:read:
704 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
705 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
710 Erase and program a flash memory device.
712 * Removed remote packets
715 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
716 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
718 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
722 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
724 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
728 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
729 only if it doesn't already have a value.
731 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
733 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
735 restart <n> Return the program state to a
736 previously saved state.
738 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
740 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
742 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
743 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
745 info forks List forks of the user program that
746 are available to be debugged.
748 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
749 forks of the user program that are
750 available to be debugged.
752 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
753 that are available to be debugged (and
754 kill the forked process).
756 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
757 that are available to be debugged (and
758 allow the process to continue).
762 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
764 * Improved Windows host support
766 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
767 native console support, and remote communications using either
768 network sockets or serial ports.
770 * Improved Modula-2 language support
772 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
773 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
774 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
775 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
776 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
777 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
781 The ARM rdi-share module.
783 The Netware NLM debug server.
785 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
787 * New native configurations
789 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
790 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
794 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
796 * New command line options
798 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
799 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
800 the child (debugged) program exited with.
801 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
802 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
803 specified multiple times and in conjunction
804 with the --command (-x) option.
806 * Deprecated commands removed
808 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
812 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
813 othernames set arm disassembler
814 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
815 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
816 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
819 * New BSD user-level threads support
821 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
822 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
825 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
826 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
827 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
829 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
830 are not yet supported.
832 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
833 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
835 * REMOVED configurations and files
837 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
838 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
839 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
841 * New "set print array-indexes" command
843 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
844 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
847 * VAX floating point support
849 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
851 * User-defined command support
853 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
854 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
855 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
857 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
859 * New command line option
861 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
864 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
866 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
867 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
868 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
869 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
870 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
872 * Internationalization
874 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
875 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
876 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
880 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
881 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
882 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
884 * New native configurations
886 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
890 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
891 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
893 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
895 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
896 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
897 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
900 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
901 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
902 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
914 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
915 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
917 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
919 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
920 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
921 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
931 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
933 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
935 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
936 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
939 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
941 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
942 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
943 IRIX long double values).
947 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
948 command. This problem has been fixed.
950 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
952 * Fix for ``many threads''
954 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
955 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
958 ptrace: No such process.
959 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
961 This problem has been fixed.
963 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
965 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
968 * New ``start'' command.
970 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
972 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
974 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
975 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
976 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
978 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
979 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
980 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
981 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
982 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
983 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
984 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
985 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
986 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
988 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
990 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
991 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
992 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
993 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
994 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
996 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
997 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
998 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1000 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1002 * New native configurations
1004 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1005 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1006 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1007 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1008 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1009 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1010 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1012 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1014 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1015 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1016 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1017 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1018 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1019 work, was also included.
1021 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1022 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1032 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1033 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1035 * REMOVED configurations and files
1037 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1038 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1039 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1040 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1041 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1042 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1043 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1044 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1045 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1046 sonymips mips-sony-*
1047 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1049 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1051 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1053 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1054 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1055 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1056 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1059 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1061 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1062 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1063 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1064 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1065 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1066 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1069 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1071 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1073 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1074 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1075 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1077 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1079 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1080 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1082 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1084 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1085 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1086 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1088 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1090 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1091 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1093 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1095 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1096 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1097 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1099 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1101 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1102 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1103 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1105 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1107 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1109 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1110 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1112 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1114 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1115 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1116 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1117 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1119 * Revised SPARC target
1121 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1122 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1123 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1124 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1125 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1129 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1130 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1131 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1134 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1136 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1137 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1140 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1142 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1143 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1144 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1145 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1146 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1147 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1148 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1149 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1150 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1152 * New native configurations
1154 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1155 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1156 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1157 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1158 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1160 * New debugging protocols
1162 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1164 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1166 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1167 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1168 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1170 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1172 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1173 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1174 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1175 permanently REMOVED.
1177 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1178 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1179 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1180 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1181 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1182 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1183 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1184 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1185 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1186 sonymips mips-sony-*
1187 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1189 * REMOVED configurations and files
1191 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1192 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1193 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1194 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1195 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1196 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1197 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1198 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1199 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1200 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1201 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1202 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1203 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1204 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1205 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1206 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1207 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1209 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1213 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1214 integrated into GDB.
1216 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1218 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1219 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1220 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1223 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1224 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1225 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1229 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1230 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1231 remote protocol documentation for details.
1233 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1235 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1236 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1237 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1240 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1242 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1243 per-thread variables.
1245 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1247 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1248 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1250 * Separate debug info.
1252 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1253 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1254 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1255 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1256 and optional debug files.
1258 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1260 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1261 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1264 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1265 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1269 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1270 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1271 considered "useable".
1273 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1275 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1276 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1279 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1281 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1282 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1284 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1286 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1287 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1290 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1292 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1293 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1297 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1298 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1299 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1300 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1301 data, for more informative profiling results.
1303 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1305 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1306 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1307 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1309 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1312 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1313 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1314 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1315 in a subsequent -var-update.
1317 * New native configurations.
1319 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1321 * Multi-arched targets.
1323 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1324 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1326 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1328 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1329 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1330 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1331 permanently REMOVED.
1333 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1334 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1335 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1336 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1337 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1338 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1339 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1340 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1341 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1342 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1343 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1344 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1346 * REMOVED configurations and files
1349 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1350 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1351 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1352 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1353 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1354 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1356 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1357 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1358 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1359 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1360 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1361 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1363 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1365 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1366 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1367 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1368 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1369 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1371 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1373 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1375 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1376 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1377 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1378 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1379 shared libs like mad''.
1381 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1383 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1384 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1385 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1386 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1388 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1390 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1391 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1394 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1395 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1397 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1398 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1400 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1401 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1402 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1403 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1405 * Multi-arched targets.
1407 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1408 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1410 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1411 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1412 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1416 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1419 * New native configurations
1421 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1422 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1423 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1424 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1426 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1428 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1429 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1430 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1431 permanently REMOVED.
1433 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1434 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1435 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1436 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1437 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1438 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1439 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1440 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1441 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1442 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1444 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1445 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1447 * OBSOLETE languages
1449 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1451 * REMOVED configurations and files
1453 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1454 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1455 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1456 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1457 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1459 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1461 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1463 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1464 commands. The default is 1024.
1466 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1468 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1470 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1472 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1473 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1474 from a file into memory (restore).
1476 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1478 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1479 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1480 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1482 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1490 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1491 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1492 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1494 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1495 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1496 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1498 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1499 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1500 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1502 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1503 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1504 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1506 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1508 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1510 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1511 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1512 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1513 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1514 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1515 (notably embedded) targets.
1517 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1519 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1520 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1521 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1522 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1524 * New command line option
1526 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1528 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1530 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1531 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1532 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1533 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1534 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1535 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1536 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1537 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1538 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1539 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1541 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1543 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1544 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1546 * New native configurations
1548 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1549 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1550 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1551 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1555 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1557 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1559 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1560 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1561 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1562 permanently REMOVED.
1564 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1565 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1566 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1567 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1568 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1570 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1572 * REMOVED configurations and files
1574 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1576 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1577 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1578 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1579 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1580 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1581 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1582 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1583 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1584 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1585 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1586 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1588 * Changes to command line processing
1590 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1591 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1593 * Changes to key bindings
1595 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1597 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1599 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1601 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1604 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1606 Numerous documentation fixes.
1608 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1610 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1612 * New native configurations
1614 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1615 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1616 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1617 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1618 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1619 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1623 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1625 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1627 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1629 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1630 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1631 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1632 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1633 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1635 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1636 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1637 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1638 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1639 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1640 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1641 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1642 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1644 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1645 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1647 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1648 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1649 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1650 permanently REMOVED.
1652 * REMOVED configurations and files
1654 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1655 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1657 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1661 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1663 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1664 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1669 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1671 * The MI enabled by default.
1673 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1674 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1675 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1676 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1677 which is now deprecated.
1679 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1681 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1682 main features are supported:
1684 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1686 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1689 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1691 - a Pascal expression parser.
1693 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1695 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1697 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1699 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1700 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1702 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1704 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1706 * Changes in completion.
1708 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1709 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1710 users expect at the shell prompt.
1712 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1713 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1714 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1715 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1716 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1717 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1718 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1720 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1722 * New platform-independent commands:
1724 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1725 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1726 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1728 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1730 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1731 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1732 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1734 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1736 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1737 multi-threaded programs though.
1739 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1741 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1743 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1744 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1747 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1749 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1750 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1751 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1752 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1753 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1756 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1757 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1758 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1760 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1762 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1763 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1765 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1766 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1769 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1770 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1771 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1772 a given linear address.
1774 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1775 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1776 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1778 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1780 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1782 * Changes in documentation.
1784 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1785 Documentation License.
1787 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1790 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1792 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1795 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1796 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1797 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1799 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1801 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1802 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1803 contents of this file.
1807 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1809 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1811 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1813 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1814 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1815 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1816 greater level of detail.
1818 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1820 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1821 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1822 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1825 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1827 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1828 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1829 machines ``out of the box''.
1831 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1832 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1833 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1834 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1835 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1837 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1838 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1839 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1840 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1841 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1843 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1844 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1847 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1850 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1851 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1852 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1853 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1855 * New native configurations
1857 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1858 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1862 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1863 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1864 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1865 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1867 * OBSOLETE configurations
1869 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1870 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1872 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1875 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1876 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1877 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1878 be permanently REMOVED.
1880 * Gould support removed
1882 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1884 * New features for SVR4
1886 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1887 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1888 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1890 * Many C++ enhancements
1892 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1893 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1895 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1897 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1898 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1899 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1900 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1902 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1903 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1905 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1907 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1908 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1909 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1911 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1912 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1914 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1916 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1917 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1918 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1920 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1922 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1923 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1924 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1926 * ``apropos'' command added.
1928 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1929 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1930 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1934 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1935 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1936 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1937 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1938 enabled by configuring with:
1940 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1942 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1944 * New native configurations
1946 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1947 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1948 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1952 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1953 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1954 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1956 * OBSOLETE configurations
1958 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1960 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1961 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1962 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1963 be permanently REMOVED.
1967 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1968 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1969 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1970 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1971 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1972 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1973 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1978 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1980 * set extension-language
1982 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1983 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1984 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1985 set extension-language .c c++
1986 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1987 and their associated languages.
1989 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1991 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1992 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1993 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1997 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1998 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2000 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2001 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2003 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2004 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2005 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2006 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2007 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2008 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2009 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2010 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2012 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2013 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2014 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2015 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2019 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2020 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2021 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2022 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2023 for xdb and dbx commands.
2027 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2028 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2029 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2031 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2032 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2033 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2035 * Debugging across forks
2037 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2042 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2043 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2044 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2046 * GDB remote protocol additions
2048 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2049 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2050 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2051 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2053 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2054 full 64-bit address. The command
2056 set remoteaddresssize 32
2058 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2059 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2062 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2063 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2065 maint packet heythere
2067 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2068 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2071 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2072 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2073 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2075 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2077 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2078 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2079 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2081 * mask-address variable for Mips
2083 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2084 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2085 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2087 * Higher serial baud rates
2089 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2090 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2091 to achieve all of these rates.)
2095 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2096 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2099 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2101 * New native configurations
2103 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2104 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2105 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2106 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2107 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2108 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2109 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2113 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2114 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2115 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2116 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2117 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2118 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2119 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2120 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2121 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2122 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2123 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2125 * New debugging protocols
2127 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2128 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2129 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2130 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2131 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2132 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2136 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2137 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2142 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2143 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2145 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2147 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2148 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2149 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2151 * Live range splitting
2153 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2154 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2155 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2159 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2160 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2164 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2165 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2166 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2171 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2176 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2177 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2178 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2179 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2180 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2181 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2185 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2186 the symbol at the specified address.
2190 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2191 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2192 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2193 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2194 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2198 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2199 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2200 of most MIPS variants.
2204 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2205 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2206 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2210 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2211 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2212 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2213 the possible architectures.
2215 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2217 * New native configurations
2219 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2220 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2221 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2222 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2223 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2224 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2228 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2229 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2230 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2231 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2232 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2234 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2238 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2239 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2240 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2241 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2242 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2246 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2248 * Windows 95/NT native
2250 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2251 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2252 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2253 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2254 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2256 * dont-repeat command
2258 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2259 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2260 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2261 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2263 * Send break instead of ^C
2265 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2266 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2267 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2269 * Remote protocol timeout
2271 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2272 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2273 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2275 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2277 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2278 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2279 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2280 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2281 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2283 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2284 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2285 automatically on hpux10.
2287 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2289 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2291 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2293 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2294 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2295 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2296 every character. The default value is 1050.
2298 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2300 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2301 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2302 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2303 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2304 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2305 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2307 * Speedups for remote debugging
2309 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2310 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2311 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2313 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2315 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2316 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2318 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2320 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2322 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2323 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2325 * Remote targets use caching
2327 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2328 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2329 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2330 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2331 off' turns the the data cache off.
2333 * Remote targets may have threads
2335 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2336 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2337 gdb/remote.c for details.
2341 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2342 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2343 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2344 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2345 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2346 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2347 sequence is something like
2349 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2351 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2355 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2356 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2357 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2358 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2359 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2360 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2361 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2362 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2366 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2367 but does simplify configuration and building.
2371 GDB now supports hpux10.
2373 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2375 * New native configurations
2377 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2378 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2379 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2380 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2384 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2385 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2386 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2387 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2390 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2392 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2393 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2394 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2395 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2396 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2398 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2400 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2401 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2404 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2406 To execute the command use:
2409 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2410 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2411 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2413 * New `if' and `while' commands
2415 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2416 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2417 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2418 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2419 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2420 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2421 if the expression is zero.
2423 * Fortran source language mode
2425 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2426 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2427 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2428 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2431 * Better HPUX support
2433 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2434 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2435 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2436 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2437 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2443 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2444 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2450 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2451 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2454 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2455 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2457 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2459 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2460 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2461 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2462 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2463 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2464 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2466 * New DOS host serial code
2468 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2469 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2472 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2474 * New "complete" command
2476 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2477 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2479 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2481 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2482 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2484 * Breakpoint hit counts
2486 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2487 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2488 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2489 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2490 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2493 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2495 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2496 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2497 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2499 * Shared library breakpoints
2501 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2502 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2504 * Hardware watchpoints
2506 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2507 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2509 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2513 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2514 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2516 * Improved Irix 5 support
2518 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2520 * Improved HPPA support
2522 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2524 * New native configurations
2526 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2527 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2528 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2529 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2533 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2534 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2537 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2539 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2540 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2544 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2545 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2547 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2549 * Irix 5 is now supported
2553 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2554 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2555 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2556 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2557 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2560 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2562 * User visible changes:
2566 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2567 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2568 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2569 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2570 debugging info for the mips target).
2572 * DEC Alpha native support
2574 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2575 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2576 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2577 Alpha-specific notes.
2579 * Preliminary thread implementation
2581 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2583 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2585 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2586 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2589 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2591 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2592 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2593 call methods, ...etc.
2595 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2597 * User visible changes:
2599 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2600 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2601 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2602 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2604 Filename completion now works.
2606 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2607 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2608 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2610 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2611 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2612 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2613 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2614 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2618 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2619 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2622 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2626 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2627 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2628 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2632 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2633 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2634 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2635 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2636 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2640 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2641 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2642 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2644 * New targets supported
2646 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2647 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2648 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2649 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2650 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2652 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2653 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2654 GO32 memory extender.
2656 * New remote protocols
2658 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2660 * New source languages supported
2662 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2663 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2664 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2667 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2669 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2671 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2672 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2673 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2674 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2675 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2676 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2678 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2680 * Faster and better demangling
2682 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2683 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2684 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2685 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2686 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2687 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2690 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2691 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2692 compiler does not actually implement.
2694 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2696 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2697 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2698 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2699 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2700 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2701 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2704 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2705 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2707 * Improved configure script
2709 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2710 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2711 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2712 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2714 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2715 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2716 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2717 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2718 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2719 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2721 * Documentation improvements
2723 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2724 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2725 before submitting changes.
2727 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2728 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2729 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2730 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2731 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2733 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2734 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2735 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2736 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2737 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2738 around this problem.
2742 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2743 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2744 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2747 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2748 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2750 * New native hosts supported
2752 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2753 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2755 * New targets supported
2757 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2759 * New file formats supported
2761 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2762 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2766 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2768 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2769 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2771 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2772 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2773 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2775 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2776 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2778 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2779 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2780 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2783 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2784 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2785 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2786 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2787 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2789 * Internal improvements
2791 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2792 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2794 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2795 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2796 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2797 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2798 shared code that handles any of them.
2800 * New command line options
2802 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2806 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2807 General Public License.
2809 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2811 * Host/native/target split
2813 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2814 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2815 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2816 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2817 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2819 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2820 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2821 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2822 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2823 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2824 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2825 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2827 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2828 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2829 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2831 * New hosts supported
2833 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2834 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2835 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2837 * New targets supported
2839 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2840 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2842 * New native hosts supported
2844 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2845 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2846 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2848 * New file formats supported
2850 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2851 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2852 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2856 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2857 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2858 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2860 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2862 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2863 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2864 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2865 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2869 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2870 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2871 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2873 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2877 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2878 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2881 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2882 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2884 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2885 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2886 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2887 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2888 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2889 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2891 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2892 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2893 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2894 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2898 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2899 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2900 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2901 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2902 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2904 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2905 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2906 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2907 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2911 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2912 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2913 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2914 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2915 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2916 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2917 each instruction being stepped through.
2919 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2920 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2922 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2923 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2924 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2925 processor with a serial port.
2929 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2930 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2931 supported, and what files each one uses.
2935 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2936 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2937 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2938 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2940 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2941 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2942 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2943 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2947 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2948 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2949 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2950 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2951 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2952 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2954 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2957 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2959 * Better support for C++ function names
2961 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2962 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2963 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2964 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2965 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2967 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2968 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2969 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2970 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2971 for the list of formats.
2973 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2975 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2976 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2977 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2978 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2979 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2980 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2983 * New 'maintenance' command
2985 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2986 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2987 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2989 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2990 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2991 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2992 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2993 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2994 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2996 The following commands are new:
2998 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2999 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3000 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3002 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3004 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3005 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3006 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3007 read after argv processing.
3009 * New hosts supported
3011 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3013 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3015 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3016 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3017 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3018 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3019 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3022 * New targets supported
3024 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3026 * More smarts about finding #include files
3028 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3029 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3030 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3031 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3032 the one that contains your sources.
3034 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3035 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3036 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3038 * Interesting infernals change
3040 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3041 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3042 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3043 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3045 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3047 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3048 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3049 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3051 See the ChangeLog for details.
3053 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3055 * New machines supported (host and target)
3057 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3059 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3061 * New malloc package
3063 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3064 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3065 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3066 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3067 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3068 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3072 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3073 'help info proc' for details.
3075 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3077 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3078 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3081 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3083 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3084 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3085 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3086 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3087 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3088 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3090 * Cross byte order fixes
3092 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3093 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3095 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3097 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3098 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3099 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3100 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3101 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3102 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3103 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3104 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3105 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3106 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3108 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3109 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3110 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3111 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3113 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3114 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3115 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3118 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3120 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3121 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3122 shared across multiple host platforms.
3124 * longjmp() handling
3126 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3127 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3128 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3129 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3133 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3134 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3139 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3140 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3141 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3143 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3145 * New machines supported (host and target)
3147 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3149 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3150 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3152 * New machines supported (target)
3154 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3158 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3159 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3160 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3162 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3163 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3164 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3165 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3166 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3169 * New features for SVR4
3171 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3172 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3173 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3175 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3176 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3177 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3179 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3180 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3182 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3184 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3185 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3186 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3187 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3188 same code linked statically.
3192 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3193 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3194 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3195 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3196 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3197 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3201 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3202 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3203 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3206 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3208 * New machines supported (host and target)
3210 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3211 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3212 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3214 * Almost SCO Unix support
3216 We had hoped to support:
3217 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3218 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3219 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3220 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3222 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3224 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3225 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3226 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3227 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3232 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3233 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3234 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3238 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3239 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3240 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3242 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3244 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3245 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3246 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3248 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3249 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3250 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3251 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3254 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3255 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3256 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3257 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3260 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3261 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3264 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3265 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3266 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3269 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3271 * Improved configuration
3273 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3274 Porting BFD is simpler.
3278 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3279 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3280 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3281 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3285 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3287 * New host supported (not target)
3289 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3292 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3294 * Multiple source language support
3296 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3297 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3298 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3299 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3300 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3301 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3305 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3306 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3307 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3308 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3310 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3311 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3312 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3314 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3315 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3319 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3320 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3321 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3322 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3325 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3327 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3328 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3329 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3330 examining core files.
3334 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3337 * New machines supported (host and target)
3339 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3340 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3341 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3343 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3345 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3347 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3349 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3350 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3351 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3353 * New remote interfaces
3359 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3363 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3365 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3366 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3367 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3368 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3369 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3370 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3371 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3372 stub on the target system.
3374 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3376 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3377 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3378 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3380 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3381 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3384 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3386 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3387 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3389 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3390 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3391 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3393 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3394 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3395 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3396 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3398 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3399 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3400 it is already running. Default is ON.
3402 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3403 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3404 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3405 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3408 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3409 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3410 or the value of the environment variable
3413 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3414 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3417 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3418 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3419 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3421 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3422 history expansion will be performed on
3423 command line input. The default is OFF.
3425 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3426 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3427 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3429 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3430 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3431 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3434 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3435 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3436 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3439 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3440 ``set width'' instead.
3442 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3443 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3444 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3445 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3447 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3450 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3453 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3456 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3459 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3461 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3462 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3463 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3467 * Support for Shared Libraries
3469 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3470 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3471 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3472 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3473 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3474 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3475 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3476 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3478 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3479 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3480 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3482 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3487 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3488 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3489 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3490 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3491 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3492 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3494 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3496 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3498 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3499 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3500 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3503 * C++ multiple inheritance
3505 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3508 * C++ exception handling
3510 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3511 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3512 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3515 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3516 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3517 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3519 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3520 current stack frame.
3523 * Minor command changes
3525 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3526 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3527 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3529 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3530 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3531 frames without printing.
3533 * New directory command
3535 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3536 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3537 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3538 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3539 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3541 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3543 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3546 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3547 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3548 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3549 where the program that you are debugging will run.