1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.0:
7 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
9 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
11 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
12 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
15 * d10v `regs' command deprecated
17 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
18 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
22 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
23 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
24 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
25 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
26 data, for more informative profiling results.
28 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
30 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
31 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
32 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
34 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
37 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
38 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
39 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
40 in a subsequent -var-update.
42 * Multi-arched targets.
44 HP/PA HPUX11, 32bit ABI (partial) hppa*-*-hpux* except hppa*64*-*-hpux11*
46 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
48 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
49 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
50 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
53 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
54 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
55 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
56 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
57 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
58 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
59 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
60 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
61 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
62 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
63 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
64 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
65 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
67 * REMOVED configurations and files
70 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
71 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
72 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
73 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
74 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
75 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
77 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
78 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
79 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
80 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
81 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
82 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
84 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
86 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
87 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
88 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
89 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
90 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
92 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
94 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
96 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
97 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
98 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
99 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
100 shared libs like mad''.
102 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
104 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
105 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
106 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
107 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
109 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
111 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
112 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
115 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
116 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
118 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
119 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
121 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
122 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
123 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
124 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
126 * Multi-arched targets.
128 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
129 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
131 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
132 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
133 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
137 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
140 * New native configurations
142 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
143 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
144 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
145 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
147 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
149 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
150 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
151 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
154 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
155 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
156 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
157 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
158 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
159 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
160 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
161 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
162 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
163 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
165 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
166 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
170 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
172 * REMOVED configurations and files
174 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
175 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
176 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
177 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
178 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
180 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
182 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
184 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
185 commands. The default is 1024.
187 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
189 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
191 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
193 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
194 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
195 from a file into memory (restore).
197 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
199 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
200 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
201 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
203 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
211 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
212 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
213 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
215 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
216 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
217 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
219 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
220 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
221 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
223 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
224 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
225 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
227 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
229 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
231 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
232 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
233 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
234 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
235 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
236 (notably embedded) targets.
238 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
240 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
241 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
242 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
243 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
245 * New command line option
247 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
249 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
251 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
252 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
253 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
254 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
255 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
256 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
257 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
258 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
259 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
260 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
262 * Changes in ARM configurations.
264 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
265 configuration is fully multi-arch.
267 * New native configurations
269 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
270 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
271 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
272 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
276 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
278 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
280 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
281 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
282 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
285 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
286 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
287 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
288 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
289 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
291 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
293 * REMOVED configurations and files
295 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
297 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
298 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
299 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
300 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
301 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
302 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
303 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
304 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
305 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
306 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
307 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
309 * Changes to command line processing
311 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
312 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
314 * Changes to key bindings
316 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
318 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
320 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
322 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
325 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
327 Numerous documentation fixes.
329 Numerous testsuite fixes.
331 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
333 * New native configurations
335 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
336 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
337 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
338 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
340 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
344 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
346 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
348 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
350 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
351 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
352 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
353 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
354 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
356 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
357 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
358 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
359 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
360 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
361 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
362 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
363 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
365 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
366 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
368 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
369 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
370 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
373 * REMOVED configurations and files
375 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
376 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
378 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
382 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
384 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
385 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
390 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
392 * The MI enabled by default.
394 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
395 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
396 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
397 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
398 which is now deprecated.
400 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
402 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
403 main features are supported:
405 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
407 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
410 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
412 - a Pascal expression parser.
414 However, some important features are not yet supported.
416 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
418 - there are some problems with boolean types;
420 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
421 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
423 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
425 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
427 * Changes in completion.
429 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
430 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
431 users expect at the shell prompt.
433 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
434 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
435 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
436 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
437 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
438 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
439 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
441 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
443 * New platform-independent commands:
445 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
446 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
447 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
449 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
451 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
452 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
453 many threads as your system allows you to have.
455 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
457 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
458 multi-threaded programs though.
460 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
462 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
464 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
465 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
468 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
470 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
471 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
472 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
473 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
474 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
477 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
478 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
479 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
481 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
483 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
484 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
486 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
487 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
490 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
491 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
492 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
493 a given linear address.
495 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
496 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
497 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
499 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
501 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
503 * Changes in documentation.
505 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
506 Documentation License.
508 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
511 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
513 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
516 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
517 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
518 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
520 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
522 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
523 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
524 contents of this file.
528 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
530 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
532 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
534 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
535 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
536 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
537 greater level of detail.
539 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
541 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
542 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
543 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
546 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
548 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
549 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
550 machines ``out of the box''.
552 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
553 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
554 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
555 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
556 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
558 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
559 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
560 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
561 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
562 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
564 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
565 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
568 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
571 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
572 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
573 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
574 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
576 * New native configurations
578 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
579 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
583 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
584 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
585 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
586 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
588 * OBSOLETE configurations
590 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
591 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
593 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
596 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
597 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
598 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
599 be permanently REMOVED.
601 * Gould support removed
603 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
605 * New features for SVR4
607 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
608 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
609 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
611 * Many C++ enhancements
613 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
614 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
616 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
618 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
619 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
620 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
621 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
623 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
624 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
626 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
628 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
629 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
630 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
632 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
633 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
635 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
637 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
638 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
639 include ``set remote P-packet''.
641 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
643 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
644 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
645 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
647 * ``apropos'' command added.
649 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
650 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
651 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
655 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
656 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
657 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
658 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
659 enabled by configuring with:
661 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
663 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
665 * New native configurations
667 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
668 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
669 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
673 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
674 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
675 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
677 * OBSOLETE configurations
679 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
681 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
682 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
683 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
684 be permanently REMOVED.
688 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
689 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
690 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
691 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
692 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
693 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
694 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
699 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
701 * set extension-language
703 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
704 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
705 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
706 set extension-language .c c++
707 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
708 and their associated languages.
710 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
712 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
713 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
714 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
718 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
719 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
721 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
722 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
724 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
725 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
726 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
727 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
728 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
729 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
730 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
731 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
733 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
734 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
735 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
736 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
740 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
741 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
742 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
743 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
744 for xdb and dbx commands.
748 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
749 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
750 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
752 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
753 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
754 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
756 * Debugging across forks
758 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
763 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
764 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
765 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
767 * GDB remote protocol additions
769 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
770 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
771 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
772 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
774 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
775 full 64-bit address. The command
777 set remoteaddresssize 32
779 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
780 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
783 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
784 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
786 maint packet heythere
788 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
789 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
792 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
793 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
794 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
796 * Tracing can collect general expressions
798 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
799 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
800 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
802 * mask-address variable for Mips
804 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
805 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
806 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
808 * Higher serial baud rates
810 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
811 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
812 to achieve all of these rates.)
816 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
817 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
820 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
822 * New native configurations
824 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
825 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
826 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
827 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
828 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
829 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
830 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
834 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
835 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
836 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
837 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
838 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
839 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
840 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
841 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
842 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
843 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
844 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
846 * New debugging protocols
848 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
849 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
850 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
851 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
852 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
853 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
857 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
858 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
863 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
864 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
866 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
868 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
869 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
870 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
872 * Live range splitting
874 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
875 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
876 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
880 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
881 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
885 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
886 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
887 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
892 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
897 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
898 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
899 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
900 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
901 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
902 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
906 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
907 the symbol at the specified address.
911 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
912 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
913 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
914 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
915 file tracepoint.c for more details.
919 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
920 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
921 of most MIPS variants.
925 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
926 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
927 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
931 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
932 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
933 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
934 the possible architectures.
936 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
938 * New native configurations
940 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
941 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
942 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
943 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
944 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
945 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
949 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
950 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
951 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
952 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
953 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
955 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
959 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
960 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
961 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
962 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
963 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
967 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
969 * Windows 95/NT native
971 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
972 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
973 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
974 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
975 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
977 * dont-repeat command
979 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
980 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
981 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
982 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
984 * Send break instead of ^C
986 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
987 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
988 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
990 * Remote protocol timeout
992 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
993 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
994 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
996 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
998 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
999 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1000 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1001 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1002 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1004 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1005 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1006 automatically on hpux10.
1008 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1010 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1012 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1014 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1015 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1016 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1017 every character. The default value is 1050.
1019 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1021 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1022 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1023 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1024 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1025 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1026 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1028 * Speedups for remote debugging
1030 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1031 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1032 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1034 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1036 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1037 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1039 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1041 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1043 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1044 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1046 * Remote targets use caching
1048 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1049 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1050 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1051 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1052 off' turns the the data cache off.
1054 * Remote targets may have threads
1056 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1057 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1058 gdb/remote.c for details.
1062 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1063 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1064 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1065 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1066 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1067 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1068 sequence is something like
1070 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1072 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1076 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1077 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1078 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1079 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1080 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1081 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1082 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1083 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1087 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1088 but does simplify configuration and building.
1092 GDB now supports hpux10.
1094 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1096 * New native configurations
1098 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1099 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1100 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1101 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1105 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1106 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1107 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1108 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1111 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1113 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1114 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1115 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1116 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1117 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1119 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1121 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1122 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1125 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1127 To execute the command use:
1130 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1131 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1132 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1134 * New `if' and `while' commands
1136 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1137 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1138 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1139 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1140 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1141 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1142 if the expression is zero.
1144 * Fortran source language mode
1146 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1147 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1148 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1149 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1152 * Better HPUX support
1154 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1155 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1156 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1157 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1158 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1164 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1165 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1171 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1172 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1175 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1176 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1178 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1180 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1181 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1182 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1183 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1184 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1185 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1187 * New DOS host serial code
1189 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1190 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1193 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1195 * New "complete" command
1197 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1198 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1200 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1202 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1203 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1205 * Breakpoint hit counts
1207 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1208 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1209 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1210 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1211 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1214 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1216 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1217 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1218 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1220 * Shared library breakpoints
1222 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1223 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1225 * Hardware watchpoints
1227 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1228 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1230 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1234 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1235 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1237 * Improved Irix 5 support
1239 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1241 * Improved HPPA support
1243 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1245 * New native configurations
1247 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1248 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1249 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1250 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1254 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1255 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1258 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1260 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1261 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1265 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1266 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1268 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1270 * Irix 5 is now supported
1274 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1275 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1276 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1277 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1278 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1281 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1283 * User visible changes:
1287 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1288 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1289 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1290 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1291 debugging info for the mips target).
1293 * DEC Alpha native support
1295 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1296 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1297 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1298 Alpha-specific notes.
1300 * Preliminary thread implementation
1302 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1304 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1306 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1307 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1310 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1312 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1313 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1314 call methods, ...etc.
1316 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1318 * User visible changes:
1320 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1321 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1322 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1323 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1325 Filename completion now works.
1327 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1328 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1329 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1331 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1332 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1333 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1334 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1335 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1339 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1340 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1343 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1347 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1348 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1349 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1353 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1354 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1355 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1356 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1357 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1361 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1362 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1363 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1365 * New targets supported
1367 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1368 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1369 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1370 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1371 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1373 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1374 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1375 GO32 memory extender.
1377 * New remote protocols
1379 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1381 * New source languages supported
1383 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1384 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1385 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1388 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1390 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1392 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1393 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1394 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1395 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1396 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1397 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1399 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1401 * Faster and better demangling
1403 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1404 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1405 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1406 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1407 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1408 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1411 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1412 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1413 compiler does not actually implement.
1415 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1417 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1418 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1419 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1420 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1421 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1422 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1425 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1426 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1428 * Improved configure script
1430 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1431 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1432 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1433 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1435 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1436 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1437 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1438 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1439 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1440 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1442 * Documentation improvements
1444 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1445 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1446 before submitting changes.
1448 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1449 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1450 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1451 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1452 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1454 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1455 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1456 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1457 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1458 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1459 around this problem.
1463 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1464 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1465 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1468 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1469 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1471 * New native hosts supported
1473 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1474 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1476 * New targets supported
1478 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1480 * New file formats supported
1482 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1483 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1487 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1489 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1490 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1492 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1493 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1494 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1496 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1497 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1499 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1500 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1501 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1504 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1505 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1506 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1507 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1508 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1510 * Internal improvements
1512 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1513 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1515 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1516 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1517 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1518 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1519 shared code that handles any of them.
1521 * New command line options
1523 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1527 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1528 General Public License.
1530 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1532 * Host/native/target split
1534 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1535 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1536 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1537 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1538 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1540 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1541 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1542 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1543 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1544 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1545 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1546 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1548 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1549 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1550 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1552 * New hosts supported
1554 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1555 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1556 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1558 * New targets supported
1560 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1561 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1563 * New native hosts supported
1565 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1566 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1567 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1569 * New file formats supported
1571 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1572 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1573 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1577 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1578 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1579 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1581 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1583 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1584 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1585 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1586 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1590 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1591 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1592 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1594 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1598 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1599 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1602 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1603 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1605 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1606 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1607 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1608 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1609 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1610 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1612 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1613 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1614 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1615 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1619 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1620 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1621 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1622 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1623 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1625 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1626 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1627 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1628 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1632 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1633 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1634 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1635 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1636 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1637 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1638 each instruction being stepped through.
1640 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1641 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1643 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1644 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1645 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1646 processor with a serial port.
1650 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1651 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1652 supported, and what files each one uses.
1656 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1657 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1658 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1659 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1661 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1662 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1663 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1664 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1668 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1669 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1670 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1671 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1672 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1673 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1675 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1678 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1680 * Better support for C++ function names
1682 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1683 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1684 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1685 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1686 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1688 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1689 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1690 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1691 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1692 for the list of formats.
1694 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1696 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1697 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1698 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1699 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1700 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1701 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1704 * New 'maintenance' command
1706 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1707 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1708 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1710 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1711 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1712 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1713 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1714 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1715 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1717 The following commands are new:
1719 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1720 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1721 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1723 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1725 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1726 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1727 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1728 read after argv processing.
1730 * New hosts supported
1732 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1734 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1736 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1737 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1738 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1739 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1740 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1743 * New targets supported
1745 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1747 * More smarts about finding #include files
1749 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1750 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1751 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1752 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1753 the one that contains your sources.
1755 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1756 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1757 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1759 * Interesting infernals change
1761 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1762 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1763 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1764 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1766 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1768 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1769 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1770 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1772 See the ChangeLog for details.
1774 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1776 * New machines supported (host and target)
1778 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1780 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1782 * New malloc package
1784 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1785 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1786 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1787 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1788 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1789 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1793 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1794 'help info proc' for details.
1796 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1798 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1799 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1802 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1804 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1805 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1806 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1807 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1808 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1809 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1811 * Cross byte order fixes
1813 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1814 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1816 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1818 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1819 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1820 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1821 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1822 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1823 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1824 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1825 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1826 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1827 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1829 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1830 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1831 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1832 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1834 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1835 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1836 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1839 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1841 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1842 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1843 shared across multiple host platforms.
1845 * longjmp() handling
1847 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1848 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1849 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1850 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1854 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1855 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1860 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1861 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1862 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1864 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1866 * New machines supported (host and target)
1868 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1870 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1871 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1873 * New machines supported (target)
1875 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1879 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1880 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1881 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1883 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1884 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1885 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1886 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1887 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1890 * New features for SVR4
1892 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1893 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1894 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1896 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1897 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1898 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1900 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1901 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1903 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1905 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1906 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1907 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1908 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1909 same code linked statically.
1913 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1914 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1915 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1916 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1917 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1918 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1922 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1923 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1924 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1927 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1929 * New machines supported (host and target)
1931 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1932 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1933 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1935 * Almost SCO Unix support
1937 We had hoped to support:
1938 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1939 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1940 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1941 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1943 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1945 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1946 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1947 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1948 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1953 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1954 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1955 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1959 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1960 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1961 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1963 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1965 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1966 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1967 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1969 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1970 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1971 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1972 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1975 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1976 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1977 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1978 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1981 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1982 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1985 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1986 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1987 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1990 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1992 * Improved configuration
1994 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1995 Porting BFD is simpler.
1999 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2000 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2001 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2002 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2006 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2008 * New host supported (not target)
2010 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2013 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2015 * Multiple source language support
2017 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2018 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2019 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2020 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2021 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2022 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2026 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2027 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2028 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2029 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2031 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2032 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2033 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2035 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2036 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2040 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2041 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2042 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2043 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2046 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2048 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2049 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2050 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2051 examining core files.
2055 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2058 * New machines supported (host and target)
2060 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2061 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2062 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2064 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2066 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2068 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2070 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2071 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2072 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2074 * New remote interfaces
2080 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2084 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2086 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2087 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2088 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2089 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2090 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2091 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2092 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2093 stub on the target system.
2095 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2097 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2098 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2099 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2101 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2102 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2105 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2107 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2108 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2110 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2111 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2112 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2114 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2115 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2116 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2117 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2119 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2120 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2121 it is already running. Default is ON.
2123 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2124 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2125 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2126 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2129 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2130 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2131 or the value of the environment variable
2134 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2135 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2138 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2139 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2140 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2142 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2143 history expansion will be performed on
2144 command line input. The default is OFF.
2146 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2147 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2148 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2150 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2151 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2152 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2155 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2156 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2157 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2160 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2161 ``set width'' instead.
2163 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2164 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2165 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2166 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2168 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2171 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2174 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2177 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2180 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2182 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2183 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2184 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2188 * Support for Shared Libraries
2190 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2191 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2192 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2193 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2194 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2195 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2196 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2197 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2199 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2200 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2201 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2203 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2208 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2209 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2210 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2211 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2212 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2213 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2215 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2217 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2219 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2220 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2221 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2224 * C++ multiple inheritance
2226 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2229 * C++ exception handling
2231 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2232 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2233 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2236 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2237 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2238 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2240 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2241 current stack frame.
2244 * Minor command changes
2246 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2247 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2248 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2250 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2251 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2252 frames without printing.
2254 * New directory command
2256 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2257 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2258 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2259 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2260 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2262 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2264 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2267 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2268 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2269 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2270 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob