1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
10 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
12 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
13 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
15 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
17 * New native configurations
19 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
20 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
24 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
25 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
27 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
29 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
30 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
31 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
32 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
34 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
35 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
37 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
40 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
41 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
42 and in inlined functions.
44 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
45 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
46 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
48 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
50 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
51 registers on PowerPC targets.
53 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
54 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
56 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
57 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
59 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
62 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
63 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
64 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
65 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
67 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
68 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
71 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
72 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
73 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
74 stored in two consecutive float registers.
76 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
79 * Improved support for debugging Ada
80 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
82 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
83 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
84 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
85 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
87 - Improved command completion in Ada
92 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
93 show print frame-arguments
94 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
95 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
100 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
107 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
116 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
118 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
122 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
126 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
128 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
130 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
131 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
132 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
134 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
135 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
136 -Bsymbolic linker option.
138 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
139 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
142 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
143 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
145 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
146 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
148 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
150 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
151 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
152 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
154 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
155 automatically displayed as character or string data.
157 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
158 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
161 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
162 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
163 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
165 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
168 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
169 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
170 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
172 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
174 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
176 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
177 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
178 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
180 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
181 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
183 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
184 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
185 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
186 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
187 Windows and SymbianOS).
189 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
190 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
192 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
193 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
199 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
200 when debugging using remote targets.
202 set mem inaccessible-by-default
203 show mem inaccessible-by-default
204 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
205 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
206 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
207 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
208 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
210 set breakpoint auto-hw
211 show breakpoint auto-hw
212 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
213 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
214 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
215 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
216 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
217 including "next" and "finish".
220 catch exception unhandled
221 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
224 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
228 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
229 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
230 an alias to "set sysroot".
233 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
234 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
237 * New native configurations
239 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
244 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
245 not query the target for its built-in description.
249 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
250 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
251 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
256 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
257 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
260 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
265 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
266 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
268 qXfer:libraries:read:
269 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
270 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
271 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
272 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
276 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
285 i[34567]86-*-netware*
286 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
287 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
289 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
292 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
293 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
302 * Other removed features
309 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
316 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
321 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
322 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
327 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
328 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
330 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
332 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
333 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
334 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
335 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
339 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
340 in debugging information.
344 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
345 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
347 set mips stack-arg-size
348 set mips saved-gpreg-size
350 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
352 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
357 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
359 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
360 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
361 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
363 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
364 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
367 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
368 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
370 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
371 stub provides the required support.
373 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
374 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
379 unset substitute-path
381 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
382 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
383 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
384 between compilation and debugging.
388 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
389 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
390 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
394 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
396 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
397 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
399 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
404 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
405 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
406 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
407 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
411 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
412 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
414 qXfer:memory-map:read:
415 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
416 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
421 Erase and program a flash memory device.
423 * Removed remote packets
426 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
427 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
429 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
433 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
435 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
439 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
440 only if it doesn't already have a value.
442 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
444 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
446 restart <n> Return the program state to a
447 previously saved state.
449 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
451 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
453 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
454 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
456 info forks List forks of the user program that
457 are available to be debugged.
459 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
460 forks of the user program that are
461 available to be debugged.
463 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
464 that are available to be debugged (and
465 kill the forked process).
467 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
468 that are available to be debugged (and
469 allow the process to continue).
473 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
475 * Improved Windows host support
477 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
478 native console support, and remote communications using either
479 network sockets or serial ports.
481 * Improved Modula-2 language support
483 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
484 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
485 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
486 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
487 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
488 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
492 The ARM rdi-share module.
494 The Netware NLM debug server.
496 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
498 * New native configurations
500 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
501 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
505 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
507 * New command line options
509 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
510 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
511 the child (debugged) program exited with.
512 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
513 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
514 specified multiple times and in conjunction
515 with the --command (-x) option.
517 * Deprecated commands removed
519 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
523 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
524 othernames set arm disassembler
525 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
526 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
527 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
530 * New BSD user-level threads support
532 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
533 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
536 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
537 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
538 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
540 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
541 are not yet supported.
543 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
544 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
546 * REMOVED configurations and files
548 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
549 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
550 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
552 * New "set print array-indexes" command
554 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
555 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
558 * VAX floating point support
560 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
562 * User-defined command support
564 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
565 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
566 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
568 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
570 * New command line option
572 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
575 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
577 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
578 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
579 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
580 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
581 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
583 * Internationalization
585 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
586 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
587 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
591 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
592 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
593 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
595 * New native configurations
597 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
601 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
602 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
604 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
606 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
607 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
608 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
611 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
612 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
613 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
625 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
626 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
628 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
630 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
631 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
632 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
642 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
644 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
646 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
647 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
650 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
652 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
653 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
654 IRIX long double values).
658 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
659 command. This problem has been fixed.
661 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
663 * Fix for ``many threads''
665 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
666 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
669 ptrace: No such process.
670 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
672 This problem has been fixed.
674 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
676 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
679 * New ``start'' command.
681 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
683 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
685 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
686 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
687 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
689 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
690 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
691 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
692 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
693 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
694 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
695 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
696 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
697 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
699 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
701 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
702 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
703 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
704 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
705 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
707 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
708 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
709 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
711 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
713 * New native configurations
715 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
716 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
717 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
718 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
719 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
720 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
721 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
723 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
725 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
726 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
727 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
728 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
729 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
730 work, was also included.
732 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
733 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
743 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
744 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
746 * REMOVED configurations and files
748 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
749 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
750 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
751 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
752 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
753 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
754 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
755 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
756 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
758 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
760 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
762 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
764 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
765 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
766 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
767 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
770 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
772 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
773 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
774 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
775 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
776 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
777 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
780 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
782 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
784 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
785 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
786 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
788 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
790 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
791 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
793 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
795 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
796 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
797 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
799 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
801 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
802 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
804 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
806 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
807 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
808 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
810 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
812 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
813 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
814 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
816 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
818 * Removed --with-mmalloc
820 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
821 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
823 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
825 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
826 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
827 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
828 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
830 * Revised SPARC target
832 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
833 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
834 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
835 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
836 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
840 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
841 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
842 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
845 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
847 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
848 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
851 * C++ nested types and namespaces
853 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
854 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
855 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
856 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
857 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
858 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
859 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
860 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
861 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
863 * New native configurations
865 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
866 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
867 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
868 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
869 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
871 * New debugging protocols
873 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
875 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
877 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
878 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
879 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
881 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
883 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
884 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
885 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
888 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
889 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
890 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
891 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
892 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
893 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
894 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
895 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
896 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
898 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
900 * REMOVED configurations and files
902 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
903 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
904 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
905 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
906 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
907 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
908 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
909 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
910 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
911 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
912 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
913 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
914 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
915 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
916 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
917 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
918 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
920 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
924 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
927 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
929 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
930 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
931 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
934 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
935 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
940 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
941 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
942 remote protocol documentation for details.
944 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
946 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
947 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
948 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
951 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
953 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
954 per-thread variables.
956 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
958 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
959 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
961 * Separate debug info.
963 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
964 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
965 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
966 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
967 and optional debug files.
969 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
971 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
972 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
975 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
976 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
980 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
981 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
982 considered "useable".
984 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
986 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
987 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
990 * GDB supports logging output to a file
992 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
993 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
995 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
997 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
998 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1001 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1003 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1004 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1008 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1009 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1010 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1011 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1012 data, for more informative profiling results.
1014 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1016 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1017 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1018 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1020 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1023 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1024 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1025 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1026 in a subsequent -var-update.
1028 * New native configurations.
1030 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1032 * Multi-arched targets.
1034 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1035 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1037 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1039 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1040 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1041 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1042 permanently REMOVED.
1044 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1045 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1046 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1047 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1048 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1049 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1050 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1051 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1052 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1053 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1054 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1055 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1057 * REMOVED configurations and files
1060 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1061 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1062 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1063 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1064 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1065 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1067 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1068 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1069 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1070 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1071 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1072 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1074 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1076 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1077 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1078 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1079 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1080 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1082 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1084 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1086 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1087 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1088 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1089 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1090 shared libs like mad''.
1092 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1094 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1095 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1096 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1097 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1099 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1101 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1102 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1105 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1106 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1108 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1109 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1111 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1112 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1113 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1114 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1116 * Multi-arched targets.
1118 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1119 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1121 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1122 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1123 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1127 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1130 * New native configurations
1132 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1133 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1134 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1135 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1137 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1139 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1140 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1141 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1142 permanently REMOVED.
1144 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1145 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1146 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1147 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1148 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1149 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1150 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1151 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1152 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1153 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1155 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1156 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1158 * OBSOLETE languages
1160 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1162 * REMOVED configurations and files
1164 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1165 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1166 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1167 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1168 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1170 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1172 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1174 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1175 commands. The default is 1024.
1177 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1179 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1181 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1183 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1184 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1185 from a file into memory (restore).
1187 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1189 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1190 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1191 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1193 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1201 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1202 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1203 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1205 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1206 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1207 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1209 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1210 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1211 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1213 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1214 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1215 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1217 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1219 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1221 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1222 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1223 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1224 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1225 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1226 (notably embedded) targets.
1228 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1230 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1231 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1232 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1233 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1235 * New command line option
1237 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1239 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1241 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1242 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1243 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1244 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1245 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1246 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1247 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1248 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1249 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1250 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1252 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1254 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1255 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1257 * New native configurations
1259 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1260 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1261 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1262 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1266 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1268 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1270 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1271 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1272 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1273 permanently REMOVED.
1275 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1276 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1277 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1278 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1279 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1281 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1283 * REMOVED configurations and files
1285 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1287 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1288 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1289 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1290 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1291 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1292 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1293 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1294 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1295 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1296 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1297 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1299 * Changes to command line processing
1301 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1302 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1304 * Changes to key bindings
1306 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1308 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1310 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1312 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1315 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1317 Numerous documentation fixes.
1319 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1321 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1323 * New native configurations
1325 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1326 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1327 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1328 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1329 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1330 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1334 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1336 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1338 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1340 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1341 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1342 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1343 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1344 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1346 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1347 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1348 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1349 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1350 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1351 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1352 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1353 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1355 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1356 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1358 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1359 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1360 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1361 permanently REMOVED.
1363 * REMOVED configurations and files
1365 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1366 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1368 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1372 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1374 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1375 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1380 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1382 * The MI enabled by default.
1384 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1385 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1386 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1387 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1388 which is now deprecated.
1390 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1392 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1393 main features are supported:
1395 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1397 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1400 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1402 - a Pascal expression parser.
1404 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1406 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1408 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1410 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1411 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1413 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1415 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1417 * Changes in completion.
1419 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1420 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1421 users expect at the shell prompt.
1423 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1424 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1425 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1426 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1427 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1428 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1429 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1431 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1433 * New platform-independent commands:
1435 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1436 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1437 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1439 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1441 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1442 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1443 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1445 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1447 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1448 multi-threaded programs though.
1450 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1452 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1454 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1455 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1458 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1460 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1461 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1462 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1463 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1464 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1467 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1468 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1469 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1471 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1473 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1474 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1476 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1477 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1480 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1481 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1482 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1483 a given linear address.
1485 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1486 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1487 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1489 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1491 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1493 * Changes in documentation.
1495 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1496 Documentation License.
1498 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1501 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1503 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1506 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1507 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1508 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1510 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1512 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1513 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1514 contents of this file.
1518 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1520 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1522 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1524 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1525 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1526 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1527 greater level of detail.
1529 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1531 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1532 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1533 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1536 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1538 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1539 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1540 machines ``out of the box''.
1542 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1543 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1544 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1545 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1546 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1548 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1549 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1550 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1551 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1552 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1554 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1555 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1558 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1561 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1562 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1563 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1564 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1566 * New native configurations
1568 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1569 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1573 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1574 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1575 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1576 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1578 * OBSOLETE configurations
1580 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1581 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1583 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1586 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1587 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1588 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1589 be permanently REMOVED.
1591 * Gould support removed
1593 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1595 * New features for SVR4
1597 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1598 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1599 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1601 * Many C++ enhancements
1603 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1604 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1606 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1608 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1609 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1610 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1611 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1613 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1614 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1616 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1618 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1619 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1620 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1622 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1623 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1625 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1627 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1628 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1629 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1631 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1633 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1634 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1635 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1637 * ``apropos'' command added.
1639 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1640 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1641 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1645 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1646 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1647 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1648 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1649 enabled by configuring with:
1651 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1653 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1655 * New native configurations
1657 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1658 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1659 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1663 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1664 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1665 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1667 * OBSOLETE configurations
1669 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1671 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1672 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1673 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1674 be permanently REMOVED.
1678 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1679 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1680 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1681 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1682 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1684 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1689 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1691 * set extension-language
1693 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1694 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1695 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1696 set extension-language .c c++
1697 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1698 and their associated languages.
1700 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1702 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1703 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1704 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1708 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1709 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1711 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1712 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1714 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1715 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1716 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1717 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1718 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1719 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1720 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1721 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1723 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1724 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1725 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1726 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1730 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1731 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1732 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1733 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1734 for xdb and dbx commands.
1738 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1739 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1740 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1742 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1743 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1744 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1746 * Debugging across forks
1748 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1753 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1754 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1755 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1757 * GDB remote protocol additions
1759 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1760 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1761 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1762 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1764 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1765 full 64-bit address. The command
1767 set remoteaddresssize 32
1769 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1770 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1773 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1774 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1776 maint packet heythere
1778 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1779 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1782 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1783 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1784 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1786 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1788 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1789 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1790 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1792 * mask-address variable for Mips
1794 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1795 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1796 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1798 * Higher serial baud rates
1800 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1801 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1802 to achieve all of these rates.)
1806 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1807 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1810 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1812 * New native configurations
1814 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1815 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1816 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1817 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1818 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1819 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1820 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1824 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1825 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1826 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1827 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1828 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1829 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1830 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1831 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1832 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1833 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1834 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1836 * New debugging protocols
1838 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1839 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1840 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1841 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1842 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1843 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1847 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1848 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1853 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1854 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1856 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1858 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1859 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1860 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1862 * Live range splitting
1864 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1865 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1866 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1870 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1871 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1875 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1876 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1877 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1882 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1887 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1888 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1889 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1890 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1891 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1892 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1896 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1897 the symbol at the specified address.
1901 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1902 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1903 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1904 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1905 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1909 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1910 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1911 of most MIPS variants.
1915 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1916 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1917 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1921 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1922 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1923 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1924 the possible architectures.
1926 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1928 * New native configurations
1930 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1931 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1932 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1933 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1934 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1935 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1939 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1940 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1941 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1942 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1943 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1945 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1949 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1950 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1951 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1952 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1953 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1957 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1959 * Windows 95/NT native
1961 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1962 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1963 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1964 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1965 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1967 * dont-repeat command
1969 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1970 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1971 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1972 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1974 * Send break instead of ^C
1976 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1977 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1978 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1980 * Remote protocol timeout
1982 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1983 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1984 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1986 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1988 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1989 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1990 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1991 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1992 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1994 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1995 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1996 automatically on hpux10.
1998 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2000 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2002 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2004 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2005 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2006 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2007 every character. The default value is 1050.
2009 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2011 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2012 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2013 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2014 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2015 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2016 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2018 * Speedups for remote debugging
2020 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2021 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2022 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2024 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2026 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2027 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2029 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2031 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2033 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2034 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2036 * Remote targets use caching
2038 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2039 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2040 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2041 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2042 off' turns the the data cache off.
2044 * Remote targets may have threads
2046 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2047 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2048 gdb/remote.c for details.
2052 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2053 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2054 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2055 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2056 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2057 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2058 sequence is something like
2060 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2062 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2066 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2067 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2068 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2069 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2070 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2071 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2072 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2073 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2077 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2078 but does simplify configuration and building.
2082 GDB now supports hpux10.
2084 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2086 * New native configurations
2088 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2089 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2090 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2091 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2095 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2096 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2097 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2098 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2101 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2103 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2104 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2105 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2106 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2107 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2109 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2111 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2112 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2115 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2117 To execute the command use:
2120 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2121 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2122 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2124 * New `if' and `while' commands
2126 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2127 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2128 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2129 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2130 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2131 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2132 if the expression is zero.
2134 * Fortran source language mode
2136 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2137 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2138 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2139 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2142 * Better HPUX support
2144 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2145 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2146 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2147 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2148 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2154 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2155 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2161 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2162 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2165 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2166 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2168 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2170 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2171 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2172 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2173 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2174 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2175 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2177 * New DOS host serial code
2179 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2180 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2183 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2185 * New "complete" command
2187 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2188 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2190 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2192 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2193 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2195 * Breakpoint hit counts
2197 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2198 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2199 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2200 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2201 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2204 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2206 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2207 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2208 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2210 * Shared library breakpoints
2212 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2213 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2215 * Hardware watchpoints
2217 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2218 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2220 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2224 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2225 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2227 * Improved Irix 5 support
2229 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2231 * Improved HPPA support
2233 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2235 * New native configurations
2237 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2238 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2239 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2240 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2244 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2245 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2248 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2250 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2251 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2255 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2256 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2258 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2260 * Irix 5 is now supported
2264 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2265 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2266 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2267 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2268 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2271 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2273 * User visible changes:
2277 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2278 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2279 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2280 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2281 debugging info for the mips target).
2283 * DEC Alpha native support
2285 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2286 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2287 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2288 Alpha-specific notes.
2290 * Preliminary thread implementation
2292 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2294 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2296 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2297 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2300 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2302 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2303 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2304 call methods, ...etc.
2306 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2308 * User visible changes:
2310 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2311 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2312 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2313 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2315 Filename completion now works.
2317 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2318 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2319 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2321 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2322 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2323 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2324 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2325 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2329 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2330 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2333 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2337 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2338 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2339 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2343 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2344 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2345 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2346 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2347 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2351 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2352 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2353 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2355 * New targets supported
2357 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2358 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2359 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2360 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2361 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2363 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2364 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2365 GO32 memory extender.
2367 * New remote protocols
2369 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2371 * New source languages supported
2373 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2374 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2375 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2378 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2380 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2382 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2383 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2384 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2385 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2386 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2387 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2389 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2391 * Faster and better demangling
2393 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2394 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2395 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2396 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2397 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2398 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2401 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2402 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2403 compiler does not actually implement.
2405 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2407 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2408 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2409 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2410 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2411 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2412 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2415 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2416 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2418 * Improved configure script
2420 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2421 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2422 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2423 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2425 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2426 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2427 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2428 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2429 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2430 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2432 * Documentation improvements
2434 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2435 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2436 before submitting changes.
2438 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2439 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2440 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2441 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2442 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2444 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2445 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2446 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2447 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2448 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2449 around this problem.
2453 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2454 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2455 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2458 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2459 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2461 * New native hosts supported
2463 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2464 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2466 * New targets supported
2468 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2470 * New file formats supported
2472 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2473 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2477 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2479 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2480 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2482 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2483 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2484 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2486 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2487 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2489 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2490 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2491 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2494 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2495 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2496 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2497 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2498 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2500 * Internal improvements
2502 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2503 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2505 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2506 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2507 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2508 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2509 shared code that handles any of them.
2511 * New command line options
2513 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2517 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2518 General Public License.
2520 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2522 * Host/native/target split
2524 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2525 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2526 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2527 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2528 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2530 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2531 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2532 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2533 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2534 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2535 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2536 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2538 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2539 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2540 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2542 * New hosts supported
2544 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2545 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2546 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2548 * New targets supported
2550 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2551 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2553 * New native hosts supported
2555 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2556 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2557 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2559 * New file formats supported
2561 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2562 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2563 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2567 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2568 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2569 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2571 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2573 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2574 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2575 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2576 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2580 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2581 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2582 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2584 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2588 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2589 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2592 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2593 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2595 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2596 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2597 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2598 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2599 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2600 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2602 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2603 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2604 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2605 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2609 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2610 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2611 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2612 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2613 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2615 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2616 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2617 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2618 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2622 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2623 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2624 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2625 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2626 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2627 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2628 each instruction being stepped through.
2630 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2631 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2633 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2634 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2635 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2636 processor with a serial port.
2640 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2641 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2642 supported, and what files each one uses.
2646 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2647 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2648 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2649 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2651 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2652 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2653 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2654 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2658 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2659 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2660 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2661 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2662 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2665 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2668 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2670 * Better support for C++ function names
2672 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2673 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2674 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2675 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2676 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2678 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2679 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2680 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2681 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2682 for the list of formats.
2684 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2686 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2687 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2688 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2689 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2690 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2691 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2694 * New 'maintenance' command
2696 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2697 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2698 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2700 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2701 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2702 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2703 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2704 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2705 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2707 The following commands are new:
2709 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2710 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2711 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2713 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2715 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2716 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2717 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2718 read after argv processing.
2720 * New hosts supported
2722 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2724 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2726 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2727 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2728 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2729 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2730 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2733 * New targets supported
2735 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2737 * More smarts about finding #include files
2739 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2740 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2741 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2742 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2743 the one that contains your sources.
2745 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2746 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2747 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2749 * Interesting infernals change
2751 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2752 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2753 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2754 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2756 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2758 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2759 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2760 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2762 See the ChangeLog for details.
2764 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2766 * New machines supported (host and target)
2768 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2770 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2772 * New malloc package
2774 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2775 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2776 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2777 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2778 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2779 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2783 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2784 'help info proc' for details.
2786 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2788 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2789 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2792 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2794 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2795 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2796 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2797 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2798 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2799 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2801 * Cross byte order fixes
2803 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2804 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2806 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2808 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2809 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2810 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2811 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2812 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2813 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2814 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2815 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2816 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2817 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2819 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2820 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2821 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2822 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2824 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2825 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2826 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2829 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2831 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2832 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2833 shared across multiple host platforms.
2835 * longjmp() handling
2837 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2838 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2839 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2840 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2844 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2845 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2850 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2851 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2852 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2854 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2856 * New machines supported (host and target)
2858 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2860 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2861 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2863 * New machines supported (target)
2865 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2869 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2870 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2871 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2873 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2874 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2875 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2876 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2877 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2880 * New features for SVR4
2882 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2883 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2884 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2886 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2887 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2888 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2890 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2893 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2895 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2896 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2897 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2898 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2899 same code linked statically.
2903 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2904 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2905 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2906 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2907 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2908 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2912 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2913 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2914 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2917 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2919 * New machines supported (host and target)
2921 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2922 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2923 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2925 * Almost SCO Unix support
2927 We had hoped to support:
2928 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2929 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2930 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2931 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2933 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2935 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2936 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2937 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2943 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2944 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2945 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2949 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2950 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2951 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2953 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2955 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2956 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2957 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2959 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2960 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2961 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2962 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2965 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2966 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2967 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2968 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2971 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2972 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2975 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2976 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2977 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2980 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2982 * Improved configuration
2984 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2985 Porting BFD is simpler.
2989 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2990 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2991 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2992 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2996 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2998 * New host supported (not target)
3000 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3003 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3005 * Multiple source language support
3007 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3008 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3009 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3010 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3011 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3012 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3016 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3017 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3018 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3019 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3021 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3022 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3023 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3025 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3026 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3030 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3031 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3032 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3033 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3036 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3038 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3039 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3040 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3041 examining core files.
3045 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3048 * New machines supported (host and target)
3050 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3051 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3052 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3054 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3056 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3058 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3060 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3061 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3062 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3064 * New remote interfaces
3070 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3074 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3076 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3077 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3078 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3079 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3080 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3081 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3082 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3083 stub on the target system.
3085 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3087 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3088 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3089 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3091 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3092 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3095 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3097 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3098 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3100 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3101 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3102 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3104 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3105 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3106 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3107 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3109 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3110 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3111 it is already running. Default is ON.
3113 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3114 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3115 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3116 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3119 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3120 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3121 or the value of the environment variable
3124 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3125 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3128 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3129 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3130 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3132 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3133 history expansion will be performed on
3134 command line input. The default is OFF.
3136 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3137 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3138 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3140 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3141 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3142 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3145 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3146 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3147 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3150 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3151 ``set width'' instead.
3153 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3154 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3155 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3156 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3158 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3161 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3164 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3167 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3170 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3172 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3173 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3174 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3178 * Support for Shared Libraries
3180 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3181 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3182 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3183 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3184 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3185 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3186 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3187 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3189 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3190 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3191 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3193 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3198 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3199 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3200 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3201 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3202 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3203 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3205 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3207 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3209 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3210 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3211 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3214 * C++ multiple inheritance
3216 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3219 * C++ exception handling
3221 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3222 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3223 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3226 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3227 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3228 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3230 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3231 current stack frame.
3234 * Minor command changes
3236 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3237 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3238 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3240 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3241 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3242 frames without printing.
3244 * New directory command
3246 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3247 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3248 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3249 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3250 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3252 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3254 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3257 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3258 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3259 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3260 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils.git / blob