1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
6 * d10v `regs' command deprecated
8 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
9 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
13 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
14 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
15 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
16 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
17 data, for more informative profiling results.
19 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
21 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
22 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
23 "mi1", can be enabled by sepcifying the option "-i=mi1".
25 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
28 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
29 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
30 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
31 in a subsequent -var-update.
33 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
35 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
40 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
42 * REMOVED configurations and files
45 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
46 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
47 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
48 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
49 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
50 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
52 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
53 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
54 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
55 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
56 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
57 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
59 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
61 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
62 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
63 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
64 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
65 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
67 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
69 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
71 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
72 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
73 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
74 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
75 shared libs like mad''.
77 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
79 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
80 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
81 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
82 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
84 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
86 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
87 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
90 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
91 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
93 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
94 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
96 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
97 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
98 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
99 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
101 * Multi-arched targets.
103 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
104 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
106 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
107 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
108 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
112 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
115 * New native configurations
117 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
118 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
119 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
120 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
122 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
124 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
125 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
126 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
129 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
130 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
131 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
132 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
133 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
134 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
135 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
136 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
137 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
138 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
140 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
141 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
145 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
147 * REMOVED configurations and files
149 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
150 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
151 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
152 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
153 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
155 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
157 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
159 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
160 commands. The default is 1024.
162 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
164 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
166 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
168 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
169 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
170 from a file into memory (restore).
172 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
174 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
175 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
176 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
178 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
186 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
187 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
188 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
190 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
191 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
192 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
194 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
195 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
196 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
198 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
199 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
200 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
202 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
204 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
206 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
207 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
208 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
209 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
210 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
211 (notably embedded) targets.
213 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
215 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
216 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
217 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
218 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
220 * New command line option
222 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
224 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
226 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
227 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
228 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
229 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
230 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
231 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
232 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
233 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
234 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
235 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
237 * Changes in ARM configurations.
239 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
240 configuration is fully multi-arch.
242 * New native configurations
244 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
245 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
246 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
247 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
251 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
253 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
255 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
256 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
257 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
260 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
261 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
262 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
263 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
264 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
266 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
268 * REMOVED configurations and files
270 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
272 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
273 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
274 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
275 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
276 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
277 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
278 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
279 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
280 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
281 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
282 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
284 * Changes to command line processing
286 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
287 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
289 * Changes to key bindings
291 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
293 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
295 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
297 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
300 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
302 Numerous documentation fixes.
304 Numerous testsuite fixes.
306 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
308 * New native configurations
310 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
311 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
312 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
313 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
315 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
319 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
321 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
323 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
325 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
326 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
327 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
328 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
329 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
331 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
332 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
333 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
334 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
335 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
336 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
337 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
338 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
340 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
341 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
343 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
344 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
345 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
348 * REMOVED configurations and files
350 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
351 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
353 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
357 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
359 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
360 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
365 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
367 * The MI enabled by default.
369 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
370 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
371 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
372 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
373 which is now deprecated.
375 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
377 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
378 main features are supported:
380 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
382 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
385 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
387 - a Pascal expression parser.
389 However, some important features are not yet supported.
391 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
393 - there are some problems with boolean types;
395 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
396 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
398 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
400 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
402 * Changes in completion.
404 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
405 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
406 users expect at the shell prompt.
408 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
409 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
410 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
411 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
412 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
413 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
414 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
416 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
418 * New platform-independent commands:
420 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
421 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
422 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
424 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
426 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
427 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
428 many threads as your system allows you to have.
430 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
432 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
433 multi-threaded programs though.
435 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
437 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
439 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
440 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
443 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
445 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
446 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
447 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
448 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
449 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
452 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
453 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
454 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
456 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
458 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
459 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
461 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
462 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
465 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
466 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
467 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
468 a given linear address.
470 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
471 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
472 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
474 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
476 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
478 * Changes in documentation.
480 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
481 Documentation License.
483 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
486 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
488 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
491 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
492 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
493 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
495 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
497 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
498 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
499 contents of this file.
503 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
505 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
507 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
509 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
510 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
511 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
512 greater level of detail.
514 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
516 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
517 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
518 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
521 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
523 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
524 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
525 machines ``out of the box''.
527 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
528 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
529 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
530 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
531 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
533 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
534 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
535 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
536 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
537 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
539 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
540 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
543 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
546 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
547 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
548 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
549 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
551 * New native configurations
553 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
554 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
558 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
559 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
560 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
561 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
563 * OBSOLETE configurations
565 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
566 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
568 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
571 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
572 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
573 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
574 be permanently REMOVED.
576 * Gould support removed
578 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
580 * New features for SVR4
582 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
583 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
584 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
586 * Many C++ enhancements
588 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
589 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
591 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
593 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
594 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
595 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
596 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
598 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
599 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
601 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
603 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
604 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
605 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
607 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
608 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
610 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
612 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
613 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
614 include ``set remote P-packet''.
616 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
618 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
619 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
620 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
622 * ``apropos'' command added.
624 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
625 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
626 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
630 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
631 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
632 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
633 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
634 enabled by configuring with:
636 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
638 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
640 * New native configurations
642 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
643 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
644 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
648 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
649 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
650 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
652 * OBSOLETE configurations
654 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
656 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
657 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
658 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
659 be permanently REMOVED.
663 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
664 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
665 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
666 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
667 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
668 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
669 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
674 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
676 * set extension-language
678 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
679 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
680 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
681 set extension-language .c c++
682 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
683 and their associated languages.
685 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
687 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
688 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
689 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
693 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
694 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
696 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
697 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
699 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
700 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
701 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
702 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
703 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
704 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
705 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
706 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
708 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
709 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
710 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
711 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
715 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
716 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
717 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
718 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
719 for xdb and dbx commands.
723 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
724 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
725 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
727 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
728 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
729 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
731 * Debugging across forks
733 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
738 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
739 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
740 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
742 * GDB remote protocol additions
744 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
745 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
746 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
747 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
749 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
750 full 64-bit address. The command
752 set remoteaddresssize 32
754 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
755 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
758 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
759 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
761 maint packet heythere
763 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
764 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
767 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
768 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
769 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
771 * Tracing can collect general expressions
773 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
774 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
775 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
777 * mask-address variable for Mips
779 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
780 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
781 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
783 * Higher serial baud rates
785 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
786 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
787 to achieve all of these rates.)
791 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
792 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
795 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
797 * New native configurations
799 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
800 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
801 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
802 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
803 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
804 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
805 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
809 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
810 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
811 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
812 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
813 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
814 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
815 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
816 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
817 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
818 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
819 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
821 * New debugging protocols
823 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
824 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
825 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
826 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
827 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
828 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
832 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
833 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
838 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
839 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
841 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
843 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
844 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
845 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
847 * Live range splitting
849 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
850 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
851 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
855 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
856 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
860 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
861 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
862 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
867 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
872 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
873 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
874 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
875 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
876 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
877 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
881 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
882 the symbol at the specified address.
886 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
887 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
888 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
889 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
890 file tracepoint.c for more details.
894 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
895 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
896 of most MIPS variants.
900 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
901 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
902 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
906 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
907 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
908 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
909 the possible architectures.
911 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
913 * New native configurations
915 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
916 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
917 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
918 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
919 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
920 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
924 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
925 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
926 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
927 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
928 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
930 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
934 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
935 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
936 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
937 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
938 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
942 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
944 * Windows 95/NT native
946 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
947 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
948 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
949 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
950 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
952 * dont-repeat command
954 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
955 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
956 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
957 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
959 * Send break instead of ^C
961 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
962 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
963 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
965 * Remote protocol timeout
967 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
968 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
969 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
971 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
973 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
974 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
975 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
976 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
977 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
979 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
980 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
981 automatically on hpux10.
983 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
985 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
987 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
989 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
990 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
991 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
992 every character. The default value is 1050.
994 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
996 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
997 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
998 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
999 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1000 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1001 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1003 * Speedups for remote debugging
1005 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1006 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1007 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1009 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1011 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1012 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1014 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1016 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1018 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1019 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1021 * Remote targets use caching
1023 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1024 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1025 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1026 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1027 off' turns the the data cache off.
1029 * Remote targets may have threads
1031 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1032 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1033 gdb/remote.c for details.
1037 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1038 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1039 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1040 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1041 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1042 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1043 sequence is something like
1045 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1047 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1051 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1052 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1053 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1054 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1055 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1056 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1057 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1058 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1062 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1063 but does simplify configuration and building.
1067 GDB now supports hpux10.
1069 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1071 * New native configurations
1073 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1074 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1075 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1076 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1080 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1081 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1082 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1083 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1086 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1088 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1089 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1090 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1091 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1092 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1094 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1096 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1097 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1100 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1102 To execute the command use:
1105 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1106 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1107 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1109 * New `if' and `while' commands
1111 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1112 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1113 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1114 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1115 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1116 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1117 if the expression is zero.
1119 * Fortran source language mode
1121 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1122 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1123 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1124 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1127 * Better HPUX support
1129 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1130 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1131 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1132 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1133 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1139 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1140 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1146 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1147 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1150 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1151 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1153 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1155 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1156 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1157 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1158 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1159 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1160 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1162 * New DOS host serial code
1164 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1165 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1168 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1170 * New "complete" command
1172 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1173 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1175 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1177 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1178 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1180 * Breakpoint hit counts
1182 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1183 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1184 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1185 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1186 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1189 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1191 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1192 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1193 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1195 * Shared library breakpoints
1197 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1198 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1200 * Hardware watchpoints
1202 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1203 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1205 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1209 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1210 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1212 * Improved Irix 5 support
1214 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1216 * Improved HPPA support
1218 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1220 * New native configurations
1222 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1223 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1224 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1225 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1229 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1230 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1233 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1235 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1236 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1240 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1241 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1243 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1245 * Irix 5 is now supported
1249 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1250 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1251 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1252 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1253 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1256 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1258 * User visible changes:
1262 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1263 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1264 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1265 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1266 debugging info for the mips target).
1268 * DEC Alpha native support
1270 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1271 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1272 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1273 Alpha-specific notes.
1275 * Preliminary thread implementation
1277 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1279 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1281 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1282 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1285 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1287 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1288 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1289 call methods, ...etc.
1291 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1293 * User visible changes:
1295 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1296 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1297 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1298 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1300 Filename completion now works.
1302 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1303 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1304 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1306 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1307 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1308 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1309 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1310 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1314 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1315 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1318 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1322 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1323 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1324 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1328 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1329 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1330 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1331 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1332 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1336 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1337 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1338 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1340 * New targets supported
1342 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1343 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1344 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1345 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1346 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1348 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1349 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1350 GO32 memory extender.
1352 * New remote protocols
1354 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1356 * New source languages supported
1358 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1359 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1360 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1363 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1365 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1367 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1368 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1369 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1370 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1371 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1372 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1374 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1376 * Faster and better demangling
1378 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1379 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1380 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1381 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1382 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1383 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1386 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1387 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1388 compiler does not actually implement.
1390 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1392 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1393 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1394 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1395 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1396 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1397 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1400 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1401 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1403 * Improved configure script
1405 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1406 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1407 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1408 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1410 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1411 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1412 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1413 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1414 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1415 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1417 * Documentation improvements
1419 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1420 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1421 before submitting changes.
1423 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1424 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1425 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1426 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1427 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1429 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1430 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1431 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1432 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1433 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1434 around this problem.
1438 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1439 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1440 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1443 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1444 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1446 * New native hosts supported
1448 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1449 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1451 * New targets supported
1453 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1455 * New file formats supported
1457 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1458 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1462 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1464 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1465 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1467 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1468 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1469 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1471 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1472 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1474 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1475 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1476 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1479 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1480 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1481 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1482 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1483 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1485 * Internal improvements
1487 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1488 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1490 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1491 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1492 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1493 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1494 shared code that handles any of them.
1496 * New command line options
1498 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1502 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1503 General Public License.
1505 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1507 * Host/native/target split
1509 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1510 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1511 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1512 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1513 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1515 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1516 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1517 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1518 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1519 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1520 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1521 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1523 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1524 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1525 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1527 * New hosts supported
1529 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1530 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1531 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1533 * New targets supported
1535 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1536 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1538 * New native hosts supported
1540 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1541 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1542 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1544 * New file formats supported
1546 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1547 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1548 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1552 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1553 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1554 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1556 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1558 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1559 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1560 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1561 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1565 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1566 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1567 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1569 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1573 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1574 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1577 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1578 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1580 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1581 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1582 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1583 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1584 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1585 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1587 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1588 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1589 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1590 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1594 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1595 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1596 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1597 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1598 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1600 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1601 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1602 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1603 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1607 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1608 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1609 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1610 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1611 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1612 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1613 each instruction being stepped through.
1615 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1616 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1618 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1619 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1620 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1621 processor with a serial port.
1625 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1626 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1627 supported, and what files each one uses.
1631 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1632 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1633 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1634 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1636 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1637 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1638 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1639 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1643 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1644 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1645 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1646 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1647 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1648 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1650 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1653 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1655 * Better support for C++ function names
1657 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1658 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1659 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1660 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1661 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1663 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1664 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1665 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1666 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1667 for the list of formats.
1669 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1671 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1672 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1673 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1674 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1675 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1676 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1679 * New 'maintenance' command
1681 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1682 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1683 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1685 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1686 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1687 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1688 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1689 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1690 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1692 The following commands are new:
1694 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1695 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1696 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1698 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1700 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1701 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1702 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1703 read after argv processing.
1705 * New hosts supported
1707 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1709 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1711 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1712 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1713 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1714 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1715 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1718 * New targets supported
1720 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1722 * More smarts about finding #include files
1724 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1725 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1726 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1727 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1728 the one that contains your sources.
1730 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1731 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1732 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1734 * Interesting infernals change
1736 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1737 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1738 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1739 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1741 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1743 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1744 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1745 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1747 See the ChangeLog for details.
1749 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1751 * New machines supported (host and target)
1753 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1755 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1757 * New malloc package
1759 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1760 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1761 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1762 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1763 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1764 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1768 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1769 'help info proc' for details.
1771 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1773 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1774 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1777 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1779 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1780 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1781 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1782 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1783 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1784 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1786 * Cross byte order fixes
1788 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1789 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1791 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1793 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1794 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1795 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1796 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1797 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1798 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1799 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1800 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1801 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1802 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1804 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1805 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1806 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1807 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1809 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1810 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1811 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1814 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1816 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1817 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1818 shared across multiple host platforms.
1820 * longjmp() handling
1822 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1823 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1824 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1825 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1829 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1830 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1835 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1836 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1837 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1839 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1841 * New machines supported (host and target)
1843 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1845 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1846 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1848 * New machines supported (target)
1850 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1854 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1855 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1856 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1858 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1859 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1860 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1861 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1862 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1865 * New features for SVR4
1867 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1868 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1869 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1871 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1872 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1873 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1875 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1876 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1878 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1880 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1881 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1882 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1883 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1884 same code linked statically.
1888 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1889 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1890 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1891 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1892 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1893 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1897 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1898 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1899 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1902 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1904 * New machines supported (host and target)
1906 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1907 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1908 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1910 * Almost SCO Unix support
1912 We had hoped to support:
1913 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1914 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1915 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1916 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1918 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1920 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1921 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1922 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1923 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1928 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1929 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1930 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1934 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1935 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1936 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1938 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1940 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1941 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1942 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1944 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1945 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1946 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1947 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1950 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1951 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1952 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1953 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1956 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1957 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1960 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1961 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1962 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1965 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1967 * Improved configuration
1969 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1970 Porting BFD is simpler.
1974 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1975 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1976 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1977 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1981 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1983 * New host supported (not target)
1985 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1988 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1990 * Multiple source language support
1992 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1993 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1994 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1995 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1996 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1997 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2001 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2002 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2003 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2004 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2006 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2007 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2008 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2010 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2011 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2015 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2016 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2017 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2018 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2021 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2023 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2024 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2025 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2026 examining core files.
2030 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2033 * New machines supported (host and target)
2035 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2036 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2037 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2039 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2041 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2043 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2045 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2046 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2047 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2049 * New remote interfaces
2055 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2059 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2061 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2062 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2063 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2064 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2065 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2066 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2067 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2068 stub on the target system.
2070 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2072 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2073 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2074 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2076 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2077 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2080 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2082 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2083 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2085 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2086 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2087 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2089 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2090 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2091 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2092 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2094 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2095 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2096 it is already running. Default is ON.
2098 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2099 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2100 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2101 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2104 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2105 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2106 or the value of the environment variable
2109 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2110 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2113 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2114 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2115 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2117 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2118 history expansion will be performed on
2119 command line input. The default is OFF.
2121 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2122 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2123 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2125 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2126 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2127 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2130 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2131 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2132 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2135 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2136 ``set width'' instead.
2138 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2139 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2140 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2141 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2143 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2146 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2149 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2152 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2155 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2157 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2158 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2159 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2163 * Support for Shared Libraries
2165 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2166 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2167 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2168 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2169 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2170 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2171 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2172 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2174 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2175 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2176 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2178 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2183 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2184 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2185 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2186 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2187 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2188 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2190 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2192 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2194 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2195 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2196 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2199 * C++ multiple inheritance
2201 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2204 * C++ exception handling
2206 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2207 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2208 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2211 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2212 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2213 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2215 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2216 current stack frame.
2219 * Minor command changes
2221 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2222 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2223 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2225 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2226 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2227 frames without printing.
2229 * New directory command
2231 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2232 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2233 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2234 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2235 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2237 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2239 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2242 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2243 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2244 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2245 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob