1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
6 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
9 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
10 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
12 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
14 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
18 * Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
21 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
22 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
25 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the XScale iWMMXt
30 set mem inaccessible-by-default
31 show mem inaccessible-by-default
32 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
33 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
34 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
35 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
36 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
38 set breakpoint auto-hw
39 show breakpoint auto-hw
40 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
41 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
42 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
43 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
44 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
45 including "next" and "finish".
48 catch exception unhandled
49 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
52 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
56 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
57 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
58 an alias to "set sysroot".
60 * New native configurations
62 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
67 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
68 not query the target for its built-in description.
72 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
73 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
78 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
79 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
82 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
85 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
90 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
92 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
93 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
94 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
96 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
97 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
100 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
101 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
103 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
104 stub provides the required support.
106 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
107 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
112 unset substitute-path
114 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
115 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
116 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
117 between compilation and debugging.
121 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
122 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
123 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
127 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
129 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
130 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
132 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
137 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
138 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
139 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
140 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
144 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
145 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
147 qXfer:memory-map:read:
148 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
149 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
154 Erase and program a flash memory device.
156 * Removed remote packets
159 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
160 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
162 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
166 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
168 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
172 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
173 only if it doesn't already have a value.
175 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
177 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
179 restart <n> Return the program state to a
180 previously saved state.
182 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
184 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
186 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
187 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
189 info forks List forks of the user program that
190 are available to be debugged.
192 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
193 forks of the user program that are
194 available to be debugged.
196 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
197 that are available to be debugged (and
198 kill the forked process).
200 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
201 that are available to be debugged (and
202 allow the process to continue).
206 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
208 * Improved Windows host support
210 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
211 native console support, and remote communications using either
212 network sockets or serial ports.
214 * Improved Modula-2 language support
216 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
217 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
218 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
219 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
220 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
221 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
225 The ARM rdi-share module.
227 The Netware NLM debug server.
229 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
231 * New native configurations
233 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
234 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
238 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
240 * New command line options
242 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
243 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
244 the child (debugged) program exited with.
245 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
246 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
247 specified multiple times and in conjunction
248 with the --command (-x) option.
250 * Deprecated commands removed
252 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
256 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
257 othernames set arm disassembler
258 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
259 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
260 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
263 * New BSD user-level threads support
265 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
266 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
269 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
270 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
271 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
273 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
274 are not yet supported.
276 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
277 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
279 * REMOVED configurations and files
281 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
282 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
283 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
285 * New "set print array-indexes" command
287 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
288 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
291 * VAX floating point support
293 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
295 * User-defined command support
297 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
298 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
299 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
301 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
303 * New command line option
305 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
308 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
310 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
311 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
312 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
313 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
314 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
316 * Internationalization
318 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
319 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
320 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
324 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
325 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
326 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
328 * New native configurations
330 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
334 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
335 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
337 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
339 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
340 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
341 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
344 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
345 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
346 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
358 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
359 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
361 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
363 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
364 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
365 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
375 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
377 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
379 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
380 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
383 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
385 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
386 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
387 IRIX long double values).
391 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
392 command. This problem has been fixed.
394 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
396 * Fix for ``many threads''
398 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
399 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
402 ptrace: No such process.
403 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
405 This problem has been fixed.
407 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
409 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
412 * New ``start'' command.
414 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
416 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
418 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
419 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
420 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
422 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
423 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
424 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
425 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
426 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
427 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
428 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
429 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
430 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
432 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
434 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
435 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
436 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
437 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
438 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
440 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
441 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
442 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
444 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
446 * New native configurations
448 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
449 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
450 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
451 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
452 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
453 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
454 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
456 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
458 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
459 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
460 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
461 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
462 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
463 work, was also included.
465 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
466 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
476 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
477 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
479 * REMOVED configurations and files
481 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
482 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
483 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
484 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
485 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
486 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
487 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
488 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
489 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
491 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
493 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
495 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
497 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
498 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
499 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
500 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
503 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
505 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
506 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
507 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
508 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
509 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
510 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
513 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
515 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
517 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
518 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
519 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
521 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
523 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
524 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
526 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
528 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
529 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
530 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
532 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
534 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
535 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
537 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
539 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
540 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
541 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
543 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
545 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
546 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
547 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
549 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
551 * Removed --with-mmalloc
553 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
554 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
556 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
558 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
559 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
560 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
561 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
563 * Revised SPARC target
565 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
566 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
567 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
568 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
569 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
573 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
574 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
575 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
578 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
580 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
581 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
584 * C++ nested types and namespaces
586 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
587 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
588 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
589 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
590 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
591 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
592 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
593 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
594 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
596 * New native configurations
598 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
599 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
600 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
601 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
602 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
604 * New debugging protocols
606 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
608 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
610 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
611 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
612 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
614 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
616 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
617 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
618 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
621 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
622 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
623 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
624 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
625 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
626 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
627 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
628 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
629 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
631 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
633 * REMOVED configurations and files
635 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
636 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
637 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
638 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
639 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
640 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
641 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
642 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
643 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
644 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
645 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
646 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
647 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
648 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
649 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
650 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
651 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
653 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
657 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
660 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
662 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
663 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
664 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
667 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
668 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
673 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
674 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
675 remote protocol documentation for details.
677 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
679 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
680 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
681 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
684 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
686 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
687 per-thread variables.
689 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
691 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
692 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
694 * Separate debug info.
696 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
697 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
698 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
699 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
700 and optional debug files.
702 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
704 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
705 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
708 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
709 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
713 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
714 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
715 considered "useable".
717 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
719 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
720 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
723 * GDB supports logging output to a file
725 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
726 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
728 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
730 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
731 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
734 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
736 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
737 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
741 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
742 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
743 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
744 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
745 data, for more informative profiling results.
747 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
749 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
750 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
751 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
753 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
756 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
757 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
758 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
759 in a subsequent -var-update.
761 * New native configurations.
763 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
765 * Multi-arched targets.
767 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
768 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
770 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
772 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
773 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
774 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
777 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
778 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
779 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
780 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
781 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
782 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
783 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
784 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
785 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
786 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
787 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
788 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
790 * REMOVED configurations and files
793 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
794 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
795 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
796 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
797 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
798 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
800 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
801 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
802 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
803 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
804 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
805 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
807 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
809 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
810 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
811 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
812 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
813 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
815 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
817 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
819 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
820 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
821 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
822 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
823 shared libs like mad''.
825 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
827 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
828 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
829 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
830 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
832 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
834 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
835 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
838 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
839 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
841 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
842 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
844 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
845 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
846 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
847 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
849 * Multi-arched targets.
851 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
852 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
854 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
855 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
856 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
860 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
863 * New native configurations
865 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
866 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
867 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
868 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
870 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
872 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
873 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
874 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
877 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
878 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
879 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
880 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
881 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
882 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
883 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
884 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
885 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
886 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
888 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
889 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
893 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
895 * REMOVED configurations and files
897 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
898 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
899 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
900 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
901 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
903 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
905 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
907 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
908 commands. The default is 1024.
910 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
912 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
914 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
916 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
917 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
918 from a file into memory (restore).
920 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
922 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
923 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
924 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
926 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
934 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
935 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
936 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
938 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
939 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
940 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
942 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
943 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
944 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
946 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
947 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
948 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
950 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
952 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
954 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
955 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
956 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
957 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
958 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
959 (notably embedded) targets.
961 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
963 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
964 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
965 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
966 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
968 * New command line option
970 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
972 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
974 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
975 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
976 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
977 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
978 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
979 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
980 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
981 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
982 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
983 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
985 * Changes in ARM configurations.
987 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
988 configuration is fully multi-arch.
990 * New native configurations
992 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
993 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
994 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
995 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
999 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1001 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1003 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1004 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1005 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1006 permanently REMOVED.
1008 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1009 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1010 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1011 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1012 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1014 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1016 * REMOVED configurations and files
1018 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1020 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1021 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1022 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1023 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1024 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1025 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1026 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1027 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1028 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1029 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1030 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1032 * Changes to command line processing
1034 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1035 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1037 * Changes to key bindings
1039 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1041 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1043 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1045 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1048 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1050 Numerous documentation fixes.
1052 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1054 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1056 * New native configurations
1058 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1059 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1060 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1061 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1062 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1063 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1067 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1069 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1071 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1073 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1074 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1075 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1076 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1077 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1079 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1080 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1081 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1082 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1083 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1084 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1085 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1086 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1088 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1089 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1091 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1092 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1093 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1094 permanently REMOVED.
1096 * REMOVED configurations and files
1098 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1099 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1101 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1105 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1107 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1108 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1113 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1115 * The MI enabled by default.
1117 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1118 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1119 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1120 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1121 which is now deprecated.
1123 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1125 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1126 main features are supported:
1128 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1130 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1133 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1135 - a Pascal expression parser.
1137 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1139 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1141 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1143 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1144 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1146 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1148 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1150 * Changes in completion.
1152 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1153 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1154 users expect at the shell prompt.
1156 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1157 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1158 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1159 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1160 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1161 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1162 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1164 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1166 * New platform-independent commands:
1168 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1169 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1170 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1172 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1174 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1175 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1176 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1178 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1180 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1181 multi-threaded programs though.
1183 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1185 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1187 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1188 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1191 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1193 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1194 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1195 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1196 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1197 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1200 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1201 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1202 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1204 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1206 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1207 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1209 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1210 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1213 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1214 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1215 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1216 a given linear address.
1218 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1219 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1220 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1222 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1224 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1226 * Changes in documentation.
1228 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1229 Documentation License.
1231 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1234 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1236 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1239 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1240 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1241 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1243 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1245 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1246 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1247 contents of this file.
1251 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1253 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1255 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1257 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1258 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1259 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1260 greater level of detail.
1262 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1264 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1265 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1266 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1269 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1271 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1272 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1273 machines ``out of the box''.
1275 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1276 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1277 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1278 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1279 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1281 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1282 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1283 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1284 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1285 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1287 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1288 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1291 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1294 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1295 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1296 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1297 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1299 * New native configurations
1301 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1302 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1306 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1307 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1308 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1309 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1311 * OBSOLETE configurations
1313 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1314 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1316 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1319 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1320 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1321 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1322 be permanently REMOVED.
1324 * Gould support removed
1326 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1328 * New features for SVR4
1330 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1331 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1332 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1334 * Many C++ enhancements
1336 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1337 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1339 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1341 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1342 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1343 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1344 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1346 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1347 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1349 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1351 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1352 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1353 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1355 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1356 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1358 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1360 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1361 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1362 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1364 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1366 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1367 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1368 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1370 * ``apropos'' command added.
1372 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1373 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1374 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1378 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1379 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1380 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1381 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1382 enabled by configuring with:
1384 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1386 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1388 * New native configurations
1390 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1391 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1392 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1396 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1397 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1398 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1400 * OBSOLETE configurations
1402 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1404 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1405 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1406 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1407 be permanently REMOVED.
1411 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1412 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1413 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1414 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1415 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1417 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1422 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1424 * set extension-language
1426 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1427 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1428 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1429 set extension-language .c c++
1430 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1431 and their associated languages.
1433 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1435 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1436 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1437 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1441 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1442 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1444 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1445 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1447 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1448 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1449 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1450 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1451 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1452 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1453 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1454 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1456 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1457 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1458 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1459 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1463 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1464 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1465 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1466 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1467 for xdb and dbx commands.
1471 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1472 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1473 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1475 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1476 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1477 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1479 * Debugging across forks
1481 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1486 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1487 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1488 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1490 * GDB remote protocol additions
1492 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1493 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1494 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1495 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1497 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1498 full 64-bit address. The command
1500 set remoteaddresssize 32
1502 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1503 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1506 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1507 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1509 maint packet heythere
1511 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1512 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1515 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1516 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1517 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1519 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1521 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1522 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1523 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1525 * mask-address variable for Mips
1527 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1528 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1529 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1531 * Higher serial baud rates
1533 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1534 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1535 to achieve all of these rates.)
1539 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1540 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1543 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1545 * New native configurations
1547 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1548 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1549 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1550 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1551 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1552 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1553 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1557 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1558 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1559 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1560 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1561 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1562 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1563 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1564 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1565 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1566 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1567 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1569 * New debugging protocols
1571 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1572 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1573 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1574 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1575 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1576 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1580 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1581 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1586 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1587 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1589 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1591 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1592 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1593 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1595 * Live range splitting
1597 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1598 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1599 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1603 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1604 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1608 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1609 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1610 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1615 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1620 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1621 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1622 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1623 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1624 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1625 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1629 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1630 the symbol at the specified address.
1634 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1635 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1636 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1637 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1638 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1642 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1643 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1644 of most MIPS variants.
1648 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1649 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1650 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1654 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1655 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1656 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1657 the possible architectures.
1659 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1661 * New native configurations
1663 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1664 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1665 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1666 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1667 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1668 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1672 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1673 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1674 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1675 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1676 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1678 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1682 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1683 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1684 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1685 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1686 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1690 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1692 * Windows 95/NT native
1694 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1695 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1696 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1697 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1698 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1700 * dont-repeat command
1702 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1703 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1704 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1705 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1707 * Send break instead of ^C
1709 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1710 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1711 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1713 * Remote protocol timeout
1715 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1716 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1717 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1719 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1721 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1722 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1723 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1724 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1725 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1727 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1728 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1729 automatically on hpux10.
1731 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1733 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1735 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1737 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1738 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1739 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1740 every character. The default value is 1050.
1742 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1744 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1745 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1746 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1747 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1748 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1749 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1751 * Speedups for remote debugging
1753 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1754 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1755 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1757 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1759 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1760 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1762 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1764 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1766 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1767 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1769 * Remote targets use caching
1771 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1772 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1773 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1774 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1775 off' turns the the data cache off.
1777 * Remote targets may have threads
1779 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1780 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1781 gdb/remote.c for details.
1785 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1786 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1787 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1788 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1789 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1790 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1791 sequence is something like
1793 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1795 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1799 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1800 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1801 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1802 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1803 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1804 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1805 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1806 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1810 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1811 but does simplify configuration and building.
1815 GDB now supports hpux10.
1817 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1819 * New native configurations
1821 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1822 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1823 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1824 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1828 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1829 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1830 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1831 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1834 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1836 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1837 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1838 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1839 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1840 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1842 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1844 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1845 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1848 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1850 To execute the command use:
1853 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1854 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1855 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1857 * New `if' and `while' commands
1859 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1860 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1861 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1862 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1863 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1864 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1865 if the expression is zero.
1867 * Fortran source language mode
1869 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1870 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1871 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1872 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1875 * Better HPUX support
1877 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1878 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1879 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1880 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1881 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1887 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1888 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1894 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1895 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1898 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1899 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1901 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1903 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1904 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1905 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1906 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1907 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1908 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1910 * New DOS host serial code
1912 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1913 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1916 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1918 * New "complete" command
1920 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1921 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1923 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1925 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1926 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1928 * Breakpoint hit counts
1930 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1931 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1932 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1933 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1934 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1937 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1939 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1940 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1941 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1943 * Shared library breakpoints
1945 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1946 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1948 * Hardware watchpoints
1950 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1951 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1953 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1957 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1958 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1960 * Improved Irix 5 support
1962 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1964 * Improved HPPA support
1966 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1968 * New native configurations
1970 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1971 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1972 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1973 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1977 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1978 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1981 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1983 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1984 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1988 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1989 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1991 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1993 * Irix 5 is now supported
1997 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1998 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1999 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2000 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2001 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2004 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2006 * User visible changes:
2010 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2011 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2012 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2013 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2014 debugging info for the mips target).
2016 * DEC Alpha native support
2018 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2019 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2020 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2021 Alpha-specific notes.
2023 * Preliminary thread implementation
2025 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2027 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2029 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2030 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2033 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2035 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2036 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2037 call methods, ...etc.
2039 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2041 * User visible changes:
2043 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2044 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2045 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2046 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2048 Filename completion now works.
2050 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2051 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2052 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2054 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2055 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2056 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2057 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2058 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2062 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2063 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2066 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2070 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2071 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2072 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2076 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2077 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2078 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2079 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2080 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2084 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2085 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2086 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2088 * New targets supported
2090 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2091 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2092 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2093 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2094 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2096 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2097 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2098 GO32 memory extender.
2100 * New remote protocols
2102 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2104 * New source languages supported
2106 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2107 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2108 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2111 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2113 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2115 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2116 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2117 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2118 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2119 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2120 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2122 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2124 * Faster and better demangling
2126 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2127 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2128 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2129 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2130 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2131 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2134 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2135 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2136 compiler does not actually implement.
2138 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2140 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2141 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2142 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2143 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2144 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2145 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2148 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2149 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2151 * Improved configure script
2153 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2154 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2155 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2156 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2158 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2159 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2160 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2161 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2162 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2163 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2165 * Documentation improvements
2167 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2168 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2169 before submitting changes.
2171 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2172 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2173 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2174 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2175 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2177 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2178 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2179 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2180 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2181 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2182 around this problem.
2186 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2187 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2188 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2191 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2192 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2194 * New native hosts supported
2196 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2197 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2199 * New targets supported
2201 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2203 * New file formats supported
2205 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2206 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2210 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2212 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2213 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2215 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2216 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2217 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2219 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2220 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2222 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2223 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2224 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2227 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2228 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2229 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2230 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2231 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2233 * Internal improvements
2235 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2236 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2238 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2239 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2240 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2241 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2242 shared code that handles any of them.
2244 * New command line options
2246 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2250 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2251 General Public License.
2253 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2255 * Host/native/target split
2257 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2258 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2259 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2260 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2261 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2263 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2264 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2265 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2266 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2267 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2268 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2269 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2271 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2272 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2273 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2275 * New hosts supported
2277 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2278 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2279 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2281 * New targets supported
2283 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2284 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2286 * New native hosts supported
2288 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2289 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2290 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2292 * New file formats supported
2294 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2295 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2296 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2300 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2301 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2302 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2304 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2306 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2307 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2308 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2309 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2313 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2314 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2315 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2317 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2321 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2322 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2325 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2326 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2328 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2329 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2330 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2331 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2332 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2333 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2335 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2336 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2337 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2338 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2342 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2343 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2344 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2345 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2346 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2348 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2349 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2350 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2351 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2355 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2356 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2357 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2358 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2359 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2360 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2361 each instruction being stepped through.
2363 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2364 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2366 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2367 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2368 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2369 processor with a serial port.
2373 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2374 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2375 supported, and what files each one uses.
2379 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2380 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2381 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2382 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2384 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2385 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2386 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2387 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2391 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2392 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2393 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2394 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2395 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2398 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2401 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2403 * Better support for C++ function names
2405 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2406 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2407 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2408 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2409 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2411 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2412 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2413 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2414 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2415 for the list of formats.
2417 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2419 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2420 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2421 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2422 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2423 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2424 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2427 * New 'maintenance' command
2429 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2430 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2431 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2433 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2434 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2435 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2436 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2437 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2438 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2440 The following commands are new:
2442 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2443 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2444 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2446 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2448 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2449 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2450 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2451 read after argv processing.
2453 * New hosts supported
2455 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2457 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2459 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2460 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2461 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2462 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2463 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2466 * New targets supported
2468 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2470 * More smarts about finding #include files
2472 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2473 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2474 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2475 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2476 the one that contains your sources.
2478 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2479 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2480 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2482 * Interesting infernals change
2484 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2485 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2486 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2487 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2489 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2491 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2492 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2493 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2495 See the ChangeLog for details.
2497 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2499 * New machines supported (host and target)
2501 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2503 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2505 * New malloc package
2507 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2508 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2509 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2510 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2511 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2512 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2516 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2517 'help info proc' for details.
2519 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2521 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2522 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2525 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2527 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2528 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2529 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2530 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2531 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2532 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2534 * Cross byte order fixes
2536 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2537 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2539 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2541 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2542 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2543 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2544 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2545 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2546 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2547 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2548 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2549 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2550 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2552 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2553 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2554 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2555 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2557 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2558 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2559 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2562 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2564 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2565 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2566 shared across multiple host platforms.
2568 * longjmp() handling
2570 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2571 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2572 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2573 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2577 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2578 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2583 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2584 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2585 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2587 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2589 * New machines supported (host and target)
2591 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2593 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2594 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2596 * New machines supported (target)
2598 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2602 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2603 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2604 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2606 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2607 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2608 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2609 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2610 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2613 * New features for SVR4
2615 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2616 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2617 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2619 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2620 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2621 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2623 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2626 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2628 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2629 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2630 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2631 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2632 same code linked statically.
2636 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2637 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2638 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2639 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2640 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2641 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2645 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2646 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2647 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2650 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2652 * New machines supported (host and target)
2654 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2655 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2656 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2658 * Almost SCO Unix support
2660 We had hoped to support:
2661 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2662 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2663 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2664 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2666 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2668 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2669 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2670 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2676 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2677 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2678 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2682 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2683 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2684 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2686 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2688 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2689 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2690 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2692 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2693 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2694 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2695 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2698 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2699 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2700 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2701 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2704 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2705 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2708 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2709 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2710 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2713 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2715 * Improved configuration
2717 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2718 Porting BFD is simpler.
2722 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2723 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2724 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2725 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2729 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2731 * New host supported (not target)
2733 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2736 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2738 * Multiple source language support
2740 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2741 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2742 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2743 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2744 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2745 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2749 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2750 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2751 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2752 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2754 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2755 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2756 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2758 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2759 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2763 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2764 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2765 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2766 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2769 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2771 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2772 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2773 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2774 examining core files.
2778 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2781 * New machines supported (host and target)
2783 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2784 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2785 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2787 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2789 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2791 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2793 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2794 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2795 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2797 * New remote interfaces
2803 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2807 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2809 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2810 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2811 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2812 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2813 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2814 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2815 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2816 stub on the target system.
2818 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2820 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2821 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2822 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2824 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2825 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2828 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2830 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2831 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2833 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2834 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2835 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2837 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2838 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2839 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2840 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2842 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2843 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2844 it is already running. Default is ON.
2846 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2847 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2848 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2849 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2852 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2853 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2854 or the value of the environment variable
2857 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2858 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2861 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2862 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2863 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2865 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2866 history expansion will be performed on
2867 command line input. The default is OFF.
2869 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2870 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2871 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2873 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2874 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2875 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2878 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2879 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2880 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2883 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2884 ``set width'' instead.
2886 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2887 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2888 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2889 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2891 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2894 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2897 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2900 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2903 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2905 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2906 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2907 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2911 * Support for Shared Libraries
2913 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2914 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2915 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2916 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2917 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2918 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2919 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2920 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2922 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2923 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2924 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2926 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2931 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2932 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2933 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2934 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2935 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2936 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2938 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2940 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2942 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2943 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2944 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2947 * C++ multiple inheritance
2949 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2952 * C++ exception handling
2954 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2955 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2956 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2959 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2960 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2961 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2963 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2964 current stack frame.
2967 * Minor command changes
2969 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2970 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2971 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2973 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2974 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2975 frames without printing.
2977 * New directory command
2979 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2980 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2981 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2982 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2983 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2985 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2987 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2990 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2991 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2992 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2993 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils.git / blob