1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
7 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
8 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
9 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
11 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
12 now complete on file names.
14 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
15 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
16 For instance, consider:
18 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
19 # struct example variable;
22 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
23 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
25 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
26 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
32 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
35 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
36 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
37 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
40 Obtains additional operating system information
42 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
44 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
45 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
46 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
48 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
51 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
52 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
54 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
55 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
56 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
58 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
59 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
61 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
63 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
65 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
66 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
68 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
69 list of section offsets.
71 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
72 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
75 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
76 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
77 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
79 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
81 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
82 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
84 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
85 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
86 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
88 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
89 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
91 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
96 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
97 available is determined at configure time.
99 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
101 * Ada tasking support
103 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
107 Print the list of Ada tasks.
109 Print detailed information about task number N.
111 Print the task number of the current task.
113 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
115 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
116 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
120 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
122 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
124 maint set python print-stack
125 maint show python print-stack
126 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
129 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
131 set print symbol-loading
132 show print symbol-loading
133 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
137 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
142 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
144 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
145 show multiple-symbols
146 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
147 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
148 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
150 set breakpoint always-inserted
151 show breakpoint always-inserted
152 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
153 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
154 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
156 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
157 show arm fallback-mode
158 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
160 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
161 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
162 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
163 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
165 set disable-randomization
166 show disable-randomization
167 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
168 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
169 multiple debugging sessions.
172 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
173 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
174 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
175 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
177 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
179 set tcp connect-timeout
180 show tcp connect-timeout
181 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
182 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
183 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
188 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
192 Show operating system information about processes.
194 * New native configurations
196 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
198 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
202 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
208 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
210 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
212 * New native configurations
214 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
215 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
219 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
220 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
222 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
224 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
225 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
226 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
227 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
229 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
230 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
232 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
235 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
236 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
237 and in inlined functions.
239 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
240 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
241 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
243 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
245 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
246 registers on PowerPC targets.
248 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
249 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
251 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
252 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
254 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
255 extended-remote mode.
257 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
258 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
259 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
260 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
262 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
263 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
264 target architectures.
266 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
267 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
268 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
269 stored in two consecutive float registers.
271 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
274 * Improved support for debugging Ada
275 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
277 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
278 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
279 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
280 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
282 - Improved command completion in Ada
285 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
290 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
291 show print frame-arguments
292 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
293 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
298 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
305 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
314 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
317 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
321 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
323 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
325 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
326 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
327 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
329 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
330 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
331 -Bsymbolic linker option.
333 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
334 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
337 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
338 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
340 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
341 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
343 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
345 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
346 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
347 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
349 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
350 automatically displayed as character or string data.
352 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
353 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
356 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
357 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
358 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
360 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
363 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
364 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
365 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
367 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
369 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
371 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
372 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
373 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
375 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
376 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
378 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
379 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
380 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
381 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
382 Windows and SymbianOS).
384 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
385 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
387 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
388 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
394 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
395 when debugging using remote targets.
397 set mem inaccessible-by-default
398 show mem inaccessible-by-default
399 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
400 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
401 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
402 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
403 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
405 set breakpoint auto-hw
406 show breakpoint auto-hw
407 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
408 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
409 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
410 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
411 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
412 including "next" and "finish".
415 catch exception unhandled
416 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
419 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
423 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
424 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
425 an alias to "set sysroot".
428 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
429 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
432 * New native configurations
434 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
439 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
440 not query the target for its built-in description.
444 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
445 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
446 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
451 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
452 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
455 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
460 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
461 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
463 qXfer:libraries:read:
464 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
465 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
466 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
467 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
471 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
480 i[34567]86-*-netware*
481 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
482 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
484 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
487 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
488 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
497 * Other removed features
504 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
511 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
516 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
517 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
522 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
523 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
525 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
527 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
528 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
529 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
530 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
534 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
535 in debugging information.
539 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
540 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
542 set mips stack-arg-size
543 set mips saved-gpreg-size
545 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
547 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
552 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
554 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
555 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
556 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
558 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
559 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
562 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
563 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
565 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
566 stub provides the required support.
568 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
569 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
574 unset substitute-path
576 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
577 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
578 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
579 between compilation and debugging.
583 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
584 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
585 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
589 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
591 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
592 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
594 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
599 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
600 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
601 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
602 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
606 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
607 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
609 qXfer:memory-map:read:
610 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
611 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
616 Erase and program a flash memory device.
618 * Removed remote packets
621 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
622 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
624 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
628 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
630 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
634 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
635 only if it doesn't already have a value.
637 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
639 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
641 restart <n> Return the program state to a
642 previously saved state.
644 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
646 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
648 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
649 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
651 info forks List forks of the user program that
652 are available to be debugged.
654 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
655 forks of the user program that are
656 available to be debugged.
658 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
659 that are available to be debugged (and
660 kill the forked process).
662 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
663 that are available to be debugged (and
664 allow the process to continue).
668 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
670 * Improved Windows host support
672 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
673 native console support, and remote communications using either
674 network sockets or serial ports.
676 * Improved Modula-2 language support
678 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
679 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
680 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
681 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
682 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
683 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
687 The ARM rdi-share module.
689 The Netware NLM debug server.
691 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
693 * New native configurations
695 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
696 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
700 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
702 * New command line options
704 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
705 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
706 the child (debugged) program exited with.
707 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
708 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
709 specified multiple times and in conjunction
710 with the --command (-x) option.
712 * Deprecated commands removed
714 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
718 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
719 othernames set arm disassembler
720 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
721 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
722 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
725 * New BSD user-level threads support
727 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
728 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
731 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
732 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
733 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
735 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
736 are not yet supported.
738 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
739 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
741 * REMOVED configurations and files
743 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
744 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
745 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
747 * New "set print array-indexes" command
749 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
750 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
753 * VAX floating point support
755 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
757 * User-defined command support
759 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
760 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
761 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
763 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
765 * New command line option
767 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
770 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
772 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
773 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
774 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
775 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
776 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
778 * Internationalization
780 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
781 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
782 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
786 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
787 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
788 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
790 * New native configurations
792 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
796 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
797 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
799 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
801 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
802 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
803 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
806 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
807 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
808 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
820 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
821 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
823 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
825 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
826 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
827 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
837 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
839 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
841 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
842 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
845 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
847 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
848 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
849 IRIX long double values).
853 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
854 command. This problem has been fixed.
856 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
858 * Fix for ``many threads''
860 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
861 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
864 ptrace: No such process.
865 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
867 This problem has been fixed.
869 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
871 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
874 * New ``start'' command.
876 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
878 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
880 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
881 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
882 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
884 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
885 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
886 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
887 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
888 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
889 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
890 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
891 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
892 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
894 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
896 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
897 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
898 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
899 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
900 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
902 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
903 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
904 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
906 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
908 * New native configurations
910 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
911 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
912 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
913 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
914 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
915 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
916 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
918 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
920 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
921 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
922 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
923 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
924 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
925 work, was also included.
927 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
928 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
938 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
939 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
941 * REMOVED configurations and files
943 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
944 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
945 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
946 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
947 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
948 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
949 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
950 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
951 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
953 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
955 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
957 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
959 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
960 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
961 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
962 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
965 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
967 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
968 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
969 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
970 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
971 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
972 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
975 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
977 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
979 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
980 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
981 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
983 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
985 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
986 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
988 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
990 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
991 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
992 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
994 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
996 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
997 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
999 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1001 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1002 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1003 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1005 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1007 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1008 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1009 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1011 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1013 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1015 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1016 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1018 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1020 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1021 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1022 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1023 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1025 * Revised SPARC target
1027 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1028 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1029 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1030 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1031 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1035 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1036 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1037 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1040 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1042 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1043 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1046 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1048 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1049 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1050 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1051 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1052 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1053 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1054 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1055 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1056 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1058 * New native configurations
1060 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1061 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1062 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1063 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1064 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1066 * New debugging protocols
1068 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1070 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1072 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1073 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1074 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1076 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1078 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1079 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1080 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1081 permanently REMOVED.
1083 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1084 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1085 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1086 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1087 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1088 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1089 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1090 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1091 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1092 sonymips mips-sony-*
1093 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1095 * REMOVED configurations and files
1097 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1098 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1099 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1100 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1101 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1102 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1103 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1104 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1105 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1106 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1107 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1108 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1109 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1110 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1111 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1112 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1113 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1115 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1119 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1120 integrated into GDB.
1122 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1124 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1125 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1126 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1129 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1130 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1131 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1135 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1136 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1137 remote protocol documentation for details.
1139 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1141 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1142 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1143 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1146 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1148 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1149 per-thread variables.
1151 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1153 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1154 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1156 * Separate debug info.
1158 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1159 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1160 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1161 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1162 and optional debug files.
1164 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1166 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1167 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1170 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1171 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1175 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1176 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1177 considered "useable".
1179 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1181 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1182 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1185 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1187 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1188 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1190 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1192 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1193 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1196 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1198 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1199 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1203 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1204 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1205 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1206 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1207 data, for more informative profiling results.
1209 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1211 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1212 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1213 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1215 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1218 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1219 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1220 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1221 in a subsequent -var-update.
1223 * New native configurations.
1225 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1227 * Multi-arched targets.
1229 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1230 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1232 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1234 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1235 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1236 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1237 permanently REMOVED.
1239 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1240 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1241 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1242 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1243 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1244 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1245 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1246 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1247 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1248 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1249 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1250 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1252 * REMOVED configurations and files
1255 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1256 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1257 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1258 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1259 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1260 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1262 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1263 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1264 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1265 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1266 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1267 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1269 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1271 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1272 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1273 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1274 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1275 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1277 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1279 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1281 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1282 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1283 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1284 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1285 shared libs like mad''.
1287 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1289 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1290 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1291 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1292 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1294 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1296 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1297 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1300 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1301 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1303 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1304 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1306 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1307 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1308 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1309 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1311 * Multi-arched targets.
1313 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1314 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1316 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1317 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1318 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1322 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1325 * New native configurations
1327 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1328 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1329 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1330 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1332 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1334 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1335 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1336 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1337 permanently REMOVED.
1339 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1340 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1341 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1342 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1343 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1344 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1345 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1346 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1347 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1348 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1350 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1351 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1353 * OBSOLETE languages
1355 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1357 * REMOVED configurations and files
1359 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1360 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1361 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1362 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1363 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1365 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1367 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1369 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1370 commands. The default is 1024.
1372 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1374 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1376 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1378 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1379 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1380 from a file into memory (restore).
1382 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1384 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1385 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1386 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1388 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1396 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1397 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1398 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1400 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1401 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1402 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1404 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1405 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1406 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1408 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1409 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1410 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1412 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1414 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1416 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1417 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1418 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1419 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1420 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1421 (notably embedded) targets.
1423 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1425 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1426 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1427 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1428 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1430 * New command line option
1432 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1434 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1436 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1437 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1438 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1439 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1440 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1441 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1442 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1443 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1444 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1445 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1447 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1449 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1450 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1452 * New native configurations
1454 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1455 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1456 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1457 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1461 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1463 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1465 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1466 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1467 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1468 permanently REMOVED.
1470 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1471 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1472 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1473 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1474 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1476 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1478 * REMOVED configurations and files
1480 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1482 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1483 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1484 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1485 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1486 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1487 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1488 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1489 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1490 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1491 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1492 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1494 * Changes to command line processing
1496 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1497 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1499 * Changes to key bindings
1501 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1503 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1505 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1507 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1510 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1512 Numerous documentation fixes.
1514 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1516 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1518 * New native configurations
1520 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1521 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1522 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1523 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1524 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1525 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1529 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1531 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1533 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1535 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1536 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1537 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1538 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1539 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1541 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1542 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1543 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1544 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1545 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1546 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1547 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1548 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1550 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1551 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1553 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1554 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1555 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1556 permanently REMOVED.
1558 * REMOVED configurations and files
1560 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1561 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1563 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1567 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1569 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1570 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1575 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1577 * The MI enabled by default.
1579 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1580 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1581 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1582 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1583 which is now deprecated.
1585 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1587 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1588 main features are supported:
1590 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1592 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1595 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1597 - a Pascal expression parser.
1599 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1601 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1603 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1605 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1606 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1608 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1610 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1612 * Changes in completion.
1614 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1615 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1616 users expect at the shell prompt.
1618 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1619 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1620 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1621 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1622 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1623 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1624 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1626 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1628 * New platform-independent commands:
1630 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1631 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1632 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1634 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1636 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1637 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1638 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1640 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1642 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1643 multi-threaded programs though.
1645 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1647 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1649 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1650 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1653 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1655 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1656 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1657 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1658 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1659 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1662 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1663 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1664 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1666 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1668 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1669 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1671 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1672 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1675 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1676 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1677 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1678 a given linear address.
1680 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1681 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1682 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1684 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1686 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1688 * Changes in documentation.
1690 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1691 Documentation License.
1693 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1696 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1698 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1701 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1702 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1703 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1705 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1707 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1708 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1709 contents of this file.
1713 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1715 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1717 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1719 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1720 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1721 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1722 greater level of detail.
1724 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1726 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1727 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1728 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1731 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1733 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1734 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1735 machines ``out of the box''.
1737 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1738 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1739 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1740 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1741 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1743 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1744 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1745 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1746 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1747 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1749 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1750 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1753 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1756 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1757 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1758 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1759 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1761 * New native configurations
1763 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1764 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1768 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1769 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1770 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1771 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1773 * OBSOLETE configurations
1775 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1776 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1778 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1781 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1782 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1783 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1784 be permanently REMOVED.
1786 * Gould support removed
1788 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1790 * New features for SVR4
1792 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1793 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1794 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1796 * Many C++ enhancements
1798 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1799 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1801 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1803 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1804 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1805 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1806 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1808 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1809 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1811 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1813 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1814 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1815 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1817 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1818 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1820 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1822 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1823 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1824 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1826 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1828 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1829 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1830 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1832 * ``apropos'' command added.
1834 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1835 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1836 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1840 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1841 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1842 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1843 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1844 enabled by configuring with:
1846 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1848 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1850 * New native configurations
1852 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1853 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1854 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1858 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1859 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1860 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1862 * OBSOLETE configurations
1864 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1866 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1867 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1868 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1869 be permanently REMOVED.
1873 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1874 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1875 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1876 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1877 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1878 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1879 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1884 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1886 * set extension-language
1888 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1889 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1890 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1891 set extension-language .c c++
1892 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1893 and their associated languages.
1895 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1897 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1898 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1899 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1903 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1904 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1906 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1907 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1909 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1910 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1911 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1912 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1913 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1914 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1915 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1916 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1918 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1919 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1920 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1921 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1925 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1926 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1927 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1928 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1929 for xdb and dbx commands.
1933 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1934 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1935 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1937 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1938 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1939 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1941 * Debugging across forks
1943 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1948 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1949 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1950 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1952 * GDB remote protocol additions
1954 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1955 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1956 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1957 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1959 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1960 full 64-bit address. The command
1962 set remoteaddresssize 32
1964 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1965 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1968 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1969 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1971 maint packet heythere
1973 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1974 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1977 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1978 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1979 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1981 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1983 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1984 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1985 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1987 * mask-address variable for Mips
1989 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1990 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1991 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1993 * Higher serial baud rates
1995 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1996 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1997 to achieve all of these rates.)
2001 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2002 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2005 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2007 * New native configurations
2009 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2010 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2011 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2012 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2013 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2014 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2015 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2019 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2020 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2021 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2022 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2023 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2024 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2025 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2026 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2027 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2028 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2029 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2031 * New debugging protocols
2033 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2034 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2035 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2036 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2037 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2038 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2042 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2043 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2048 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2049 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2051 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2053 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2054 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2055 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2057 * Live range splitting
2059 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2060 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2061 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2065 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2066 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2070 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2071 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2072 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2077 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2082 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2083 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2084 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2085 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2086 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2087 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2091 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2092 the symbol at the specified address.
2096 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2097 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2098 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2099 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2100 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2104 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2105 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2106 of most MIPS variants.
2110 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2111 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2112 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2116 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2117 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2118 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2119 the possible architectures.
2121 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2123 * New native configurations
2125 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2126 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2127 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2128 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2129 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2130 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2134 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2135 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2136 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2137 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2138 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2140 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2144 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2145 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2146 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2147 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2148 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2152 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2154 * Windows 95/NT native
2156 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2157 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2158 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2159 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2160 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2162 * dont-repeat command
2164 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2165 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2166 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2167 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2169 * Send break instead of ^C
2171 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2172 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2173 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2175 * Remote protocol timeout
2177 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2178 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2179 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2181 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2183 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2184 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2185 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2186 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2187 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2189 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2190 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2191 automatically on hpux10.
2193 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2195 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2197 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2199 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2200 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2201 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2202 every character. The default value is 1050.
2204 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2206 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2207 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2208 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2209 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2210 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2211 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2213 * Speedups for remote debugging
2215 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2216 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2217 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2219 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2221 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2222 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2224 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2226 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2228 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2229 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2231 * Remote targets use caching
2233 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2234 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2235 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2236 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2237 off' turns the the data cache off.
2239 * Remote targets may have threads
2241 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2242 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2243 gdb/remote.c for details.
2247 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2248 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2249 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2250 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2251 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2252 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2253 sequence is something like
2255 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2257 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2261 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2262 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2263 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2264 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2265 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2266 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2267 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2268 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2272 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2273 but does simplify configuration and building.
2277 GDB now supports hpux10.
2279 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2281 * New native configurations
2283 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2284 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2285 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2286 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2290 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2291 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2292 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2293 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2296 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2298 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2299 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2300 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2301 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2302 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2304 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2306 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2307 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2310 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2312 To execute the command use:
2315 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2316 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2317 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2319 * New `if' and `while' commands
2321 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2322 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2323 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2324 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2325 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2326 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2327 if the expression is zero.
2329 * Fortran source language mode
2331 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2332 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2333 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2334 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2337 * Better HPUX support
2339 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2340 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2341 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2342 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2343 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2349 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2350 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2356 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2357 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2360 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2361 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2363 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2365 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2366 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2367 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2368 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2369 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2370 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2372 * New DOS host serial code
2374 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2375 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2378 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2380 * New "complete" command
2382 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2383 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2385 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2387 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2388 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2390 * Breakpoint hit counts
2392 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2393 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2394 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2395 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2396 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2399 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2401 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2402 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2403 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2405 * Shared library breakpoints
2407 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2408 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2410 * Hardware watchpoints
2412 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2413 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2415 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2419 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2420 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2422 * Improved Irix 5 support
2424 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2426 * Improved HPPA support
2428 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2430 * New native configurations
2432 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2433 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2434 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2435 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2439 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2440 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2443 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2445 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2446 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2450 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2451 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2453 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2455 * Irix 5 is now supported
2459 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2460 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2461 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2462 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2463 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2466 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2468 * User visible changes:
2472 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2473 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2474 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2475 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2476 debugging info for the mips target).
2478 * DEC Alpha native support
2480 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2481 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2482 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2483 Alpha-specific notes.
2485 * Preliminary thread implementation
2487 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2489 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2491 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2492 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2495 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2497 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2498 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2499 call methods, ...etc.
2501 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2503 * User visible changes:
2505 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2506 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2507 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2508 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2510 Filename completion now works.
2512 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2513 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2514 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2516 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2517 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2518 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2519 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2520 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2524 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2525 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2528 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2532 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2533 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2534 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2538 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2539 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2540 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2541 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2542 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2546 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2547 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2548 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2550 * New targets supported
2552 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2553 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2554 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2555 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2556 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2558 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2559 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2560 GO32 memory extender.
2562 * New remote protocols
2564 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2566 * New source languages supported
2568 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2569 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2570 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2573 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2575 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2577 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2578 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2579 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2580 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2581 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2582 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2584 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2586 * Faster and better demangling
2588 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2589 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2590 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2591 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2592 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2593 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2596 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2597 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2598 compiler does not actually implement.
2600 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2602 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2603 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2604 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2605 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2606 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2607 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2610 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2611 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2613 * Improved configure script
2615 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2616 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2617 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2618 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2620 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2621 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2622 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2623 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2624 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2625 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2627 * Documentation improvements
2629 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2630 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2631 before submitting changes.
2633 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2634 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2635 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2636 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2637 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2639 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2640 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2641 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2642 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2643 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2644 around this problem.
2648 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2649 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2650 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2653 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2654 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2656 * New native hosts supported
2658 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2659 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2661 * New targets supported
2663 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2665 * New file formats supported
2667 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2668 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2672 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2674 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2675 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2677 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2678 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2679 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2681 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2682 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2684 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2685 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2686 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2689 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2690 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2691 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2692 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2693 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2695 * Internal improvements
2697 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2698 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2700 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2701 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2702 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2703 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2704 shared code that handles any of them.
2706 * New command line options
2708 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2712 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2713 General Public License.
2715 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2717 * Host/native/target split
2719 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2720 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2721 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2722 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2723 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2725 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2726 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2727 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2728 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2729 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2730 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2731 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2733 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2734 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2735 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2737 * New hosts supported
2739 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2740 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2741 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2743 * New targets supported
2745 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2746 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2748 * New native hosts supported
2750 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2751 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2752 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2754 * New file formats supported
2756 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2757 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2758 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2762 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2763 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2764 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2766 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2768 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2769 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2770 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2771 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2775 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2776 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2777 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2779 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2783 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2784 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2787 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2788 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2790 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2791 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2792 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2793 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2794 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2795 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2797 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2798 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2799 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2800 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2804 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2805 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2806 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2807 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2808 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2810 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2811 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2812 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2813 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2817 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2818 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2819 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2820 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2821 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2822 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2823 each instruction being stepped through.
2825 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2826 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2828 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2829 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2830 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2831 processor with a serial port.
2835 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2836 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2837 supported, and what files each one uses.
2841 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2842 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2843 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2844 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2846 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2847 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2848 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2849 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2853 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2854 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2855 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2856 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2857 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2858 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2860 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2863 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2865 * Better support for C++ function names
2867 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2868 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2869 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2870 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2871 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2873 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2874 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2875 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2876 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2877 for the list of formats.
2879 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2881 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2882 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2883 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2884 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2885 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2886 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2889 * New 'maintenance' command
2891 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2892 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2893 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2895 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2896 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2897 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2898 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2899 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2900 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2902 The following commands are new:
2904 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2905 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2906 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2908 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2910 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2911 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2912 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2913 read after argv processing.
2915 * New hosts supported
2917 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2919 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2921 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2922 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2923 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2924 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2925 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2928 * New targets supported
2930 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2932 * More smarts about finding #include files
2934 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2935 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2936 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2937 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2938 the one that contains your sources.
2940 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2941 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2942 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2944 * Interesting infernals change
2946 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2947 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2948 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2949 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2951 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2953 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2954 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2955 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2957 See the ChangeLog for details.
2959 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2961 * New machines supported (host and target)
2963 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2965 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2967 * New malloc package
2969 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2970 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2971 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2972 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2973 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2974 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2978 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2979 'help info proc' for details.
2981 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2983 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2984 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2987 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2989 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2990 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2991 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2992 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2993 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2994 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2996 * Cross byte order fixes
2998 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2999 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3001 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3003 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3004 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3005 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3006 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3007 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3008 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3009 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3010 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3011 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3012 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3014 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3015 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3016 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3017 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3019 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3020 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3021 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3024 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3026 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3027 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3028 shared across multiple host platforms.
3030 * longjmp() handling
3032 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3033 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3034 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3035 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3039 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3040 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3045 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3046 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3047 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3049 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3051 * New machines supported (host and target)
3053 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3055 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3056 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3058 * New machines supported (target)
3060 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3064 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3065 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3066 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3068 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3069 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3070 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3071 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3072 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3075 * New features for SVR4
3077 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3078 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3079 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3081 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3082 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3083 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3085 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3086 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3088 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3090 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3091 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3092 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3093 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3094 same code linked statically.
3098 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3099 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3100 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3101 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3102 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3103 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3107 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3108 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3109 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3112 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3114 * New machines supported (host and target)
3116 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3117 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3118 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3120 * Almost SCO Unix support
3122 We had hoped to support:
3123 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3124 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3125 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3126 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3128 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3130 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3131 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3132 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3133 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3138 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3139 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3140 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3144 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3145 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3146 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3148 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3150 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3151 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3152 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3154 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3155 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3156 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3157 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3160 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3161 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3162 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3163 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3166 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3167 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3170 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3171 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3172 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3175 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3177 * Improved configuration
3179 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3180 Porting BFD is simpler.
3184 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3185 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3186 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3187 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3191 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3193 * New host supported (not target)
3195 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3198 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3200 * Multiple source language support
3202 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3203 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3204 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3205 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3206 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3207 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3211 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3212 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3213 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3214 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3216 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3217 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3218 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3220 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3221 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3225 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3226 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3227 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3228 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3231 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3233 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3234 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3235 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3236 examining core files.
3240 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3243 * New machines supported (host and target)
3245 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3246 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3247 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3249 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3251 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3253 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3255 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3256 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3257 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3259 * New remote interfaces
3265 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3269 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3271 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3272 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3273 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3274 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3275 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3276 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3277 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3278 stub on the target system.
3280 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3282 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3283 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3284 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3286 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3287 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3290 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3292 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3293 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3295 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3296 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3297 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3299 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3300 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3301 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3302 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3304 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3305 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3306 it is already running. Default is ON.
3308 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3309 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3310 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3311 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3314 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3315 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3316 or the value of the environment variable
3319 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3320 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3323 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3324 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3325 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3327 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3328 history expansion will be performed on
3329 command line input. The default is OFF.
3331 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3332 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3333 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3335 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3336 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3337 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3340 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3341 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3342 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3345 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3346 ``set width'' instead.
3348 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3349 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3350 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3351 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3353 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3356 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3359 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3362 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3365 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3367 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3368 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3369 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3373 * Support for Shared Libraries
3375 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3376 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3377 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3378 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3379 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3380 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3381 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3382 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3384 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3385 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3386 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3388 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3393 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3394 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3395 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3396 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3397 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3398 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3400 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3402 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3404 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3405 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3406 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3409 * C++ multiple inheritance
3411 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3414 * C++ exception handling
3416 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3417 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3418 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3421 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3422 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3423 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3425 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3426 current stack frame.
3429 * Minor command changes
3431 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3432 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3433 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3435 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3436 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3437 frames without printing.
3439 * New directory command
3441 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3442 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3443 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3444 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3445 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3447 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3449 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3452 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3453 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3454 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3455 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob