1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.2:
6 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
8 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
10 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
11 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
14 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
16 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
17 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
18 IRIX long double values).
22 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
23 command. This problem has been fixed.
25 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
27 * Fix for ``many threads''
29 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
30 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
33 ptrace: No such process.
34 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
36 This problem has been fixed.
38 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
40 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
43 * New ``start'' command.
45 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
47 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
49 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
50 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
51 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
53 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
54 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
55 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
56 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
57 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
58 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
59 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
60 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
61 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
63 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
65 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
66 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
67 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
68 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
69 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
71 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
72 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
73 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
75 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
77 * New native configurations
79 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
80 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
81 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
82 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
83 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
84 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
85 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
87 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
89 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
90 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
91 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
92 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
93 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
94 work, was also included.
96 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
97 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
107 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
108 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
110 * REMOVED configurations and files
112 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
113 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
114 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
115 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
116 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
117 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
118 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
119 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
120 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
122 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
124 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
126 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
128 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
129 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
130 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
131 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
134 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
136 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
137 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
138 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
139 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
140 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
141 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
144 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
146 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
148 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
149 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
150 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
152 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
154 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
155 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
157 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
159 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
160 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
161 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
163 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
165 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
166 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
168 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
170 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
171 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
172 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
174 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
176 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
177 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
178 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
180 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
182 * Removed --with-mmalloc
184 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
185 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
187 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
189 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
190 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
191 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
192 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
194 * Revised SPARC target
196 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
197 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
198 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
199 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
200 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
204 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
205 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
206 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
209 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
211 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
212 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
215 * C++ nested types and namespaces
217 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
218 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
219 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
220 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
221 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
222 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
223 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
224 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
225 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
227 * New native configurations
229 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
230 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
231 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
232 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
233 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
235 * New debugging protocols
237 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
239 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
241 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
242 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
243 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
245 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
247 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
248 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
249 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
252 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
253 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
254 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
255 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
256 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
257 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
258 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
259 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
260 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
262 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
264 * REMOVED configurations and files
266 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
267 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
268 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
269 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
270 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
271 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
272 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
273 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
274 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
275 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
276 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
277 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
278 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
279 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
280 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
281 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
282 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
284 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
288 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
291 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
293 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
294 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
295 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
298 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
299 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
304 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
305 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
306 remote protocol documentation for details.
308 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
310 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
311 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
312 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
315 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
317 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
318 per-thread variables.
320 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
322 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
323 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
325 * Separate debug info.
327 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
328 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
329 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
330 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
331 and optional debug files.
333 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
335 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
336 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
339 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
340 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
344 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
345 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
346 considered "useable".
348 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
350 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
351 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
354 * GDB supports logging output to a file
356 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
357 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
359 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
361 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
362 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
365 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
367 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
368 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
372 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
373 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
374 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
375 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
376 data, for more informative profiling results.
378 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
380 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
381 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
382 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
384 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
387 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
388 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
389 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
390 in a subsequent -var-update.
392 * New native configurations.
394 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
396 * Multi-arched targets.
398 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
399 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
401 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
403 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
404 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
405 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
408 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
409 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
410 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
411 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
412 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
413 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
414 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
415 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
416 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
417 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
418 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
419 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
421 * REMOVED configurations and files
424 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
425 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
426 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
427 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
428 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
429 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
431 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
432 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
433 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
434 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
435 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
436 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
438 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
440 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
441 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
442 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
443 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
444 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
446 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
448 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
450 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
451 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
452 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
453 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
454 shared libs like mad''.
456 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
458 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
459 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
460 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
461 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
463 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
465 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
466 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
469 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
470 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
472 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
473 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
475 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
476 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
477 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
478 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
480 * Multi-arched targets.
482 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
483 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
485 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
486 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
487 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
491 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
494 * New native configurations
496 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
497 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
498 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
499 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
501 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
503 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
504 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
505 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
508 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
509 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
510 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
511 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
512 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
513 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
514 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
515 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
516 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
517 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
519 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
520 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
524 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
526 * REMOVED configurations and files
528 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
529 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
530 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
531 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
532 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
534 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
536 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
538 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
539 commands. The default is 1024.
541 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
543 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
545 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
547 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
548 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
549 from a file into memory (restore).
551 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
553 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
554 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
555 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
557 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
565 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
566 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
567 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
569 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
570 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
571 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
573 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
574 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
575 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
577 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
578 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
579 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
581 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
583 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
585 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
586 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
587 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
588 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
589 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
590 (notably embedded) targets.
592 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
594 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
595 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
596 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
597 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
599 * New command line option
601 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
603 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
605 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
606 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
607 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
608 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
609 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
610 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
611 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
612 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
613 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
614 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
616 * Changes in ARM configurations.
618 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
619 configuration is fully multi-arch.
621 * New native configurations
623 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
624 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
625 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
626 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
630 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
632 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
634 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
635 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
636 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
639 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
640 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
641 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
642 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
643 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
645 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
647 * REMOVED configurations and files
649 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
651 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
652 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
653 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
654 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
655 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
656 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
657 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
658 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
659 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
660 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
661 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
663 * Changes to command line processing
665 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
666 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
668 * Changes to key bindings
670 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
672 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
674 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
676 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
679 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
681 Numerous documentation fixes.
683 Numerous testsuite fixes.
685 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
687 * New native configurations
689 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
690 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
691 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
692 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
694 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
698 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
700 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
702 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
704 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
705 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
706 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
707 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
708 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
710 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
711 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
712 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
713 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
714 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
715 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
716 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
717 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
719 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
720 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
722 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
723 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
724 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
727 * REMOVED configurations and files
729 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
730 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
732 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
736 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
738 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
739 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
744 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
746 * The MI enabled by default.
748 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
749 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
750 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
751 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
752 which is now deprecated.
754 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
756 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
757 main features are supported:
759 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
761 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
764 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
766 - a Pascal expression parser.
768 However, some important features are not yet supported.
770 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
772 - there are some problems with boolean types;
774 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
775 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
777 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
779 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
781 * Changes in completion.
783 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
784 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
785 users expect at the shell prompt.
787 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
788 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
789 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
790 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
791 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
792 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
793 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
795 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
797 * New platform-independent commands:
799 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
800 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
801 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
803 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
805 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
806 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
807 many threads as your system allows you to have.
809 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
811 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
812 multi-threaded programs though.
814 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
816 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
818 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
819 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
822 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
824 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
825 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
826 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
827 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
828 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
831 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
832 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
833 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
835 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
837 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
838 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
840 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
841 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
844 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
845 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
846 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
847 a given linear address.
849 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
850 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
851 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
853 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
855 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
857 * Changes in documentation.
859 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
860 Documentation License.
862 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
865 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
867 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
870 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
871 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
872 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
874 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
876 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
877 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
878 contents of this file.
882 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
884 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
886 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
888 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
889 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
890 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
891 greater level of detail.
893 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
895 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
896 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
897 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
900 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
902 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
903 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
904 machines ``out of the box''.
906 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
907 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
908 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
909 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
910 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
912 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
913 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
914 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
915 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
916 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
918 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
919 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
922 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
925 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
926 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
927 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
928 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
930 * New native configurations
932 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
933 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
937 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
938 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
939 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
940 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
942 * OBSOLETE configurations
944 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
945 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
947 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
950 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
951 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
952 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
953 be permanently REMOVED.
955 * Gould support removed
957 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
959 * New features for SVR4
961 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
962 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
963 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
965 * Many C++ enhancements
967 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
968 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
970 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
972 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
973 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
974 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
975 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
977 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
978 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
980 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
982 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
983 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
984 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
986 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
987 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
989 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
991 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
992 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
993 include ``set remote P-packet''.
995 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
997 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
998 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
999 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1001 * ``apropos'' command added.
1003 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1004 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1005 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1009 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1010 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1011 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1012 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1013 enabled by configuring with:
1015 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1017 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1019 * New native configurations
1021 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1022 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1023 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1027 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1028 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1029 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1031 * OBSOLETE configurations
1033 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1035 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1036 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1037 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1038 be permanently REMOVED.
1042 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1043 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1044 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1045 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1046 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1048 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1053 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1055 * set extension-language
1057 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1058 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1059 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1060 set extension-language .c c++
1061 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1062 and their associated languages.
1064 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1066 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1067 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1068 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1072 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1073 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1075 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1076 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1078 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1079 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1080 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1081 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1082 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1083 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1084 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1085 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1087 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1088 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1089 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1090 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1094 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1095 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1096 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1097 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1098 for xdb and dbx commands.
1102 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1103 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1104 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1106 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1107 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1108 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1110 * Debugging across forks
1112 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1117 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1118 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1119 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1121 * GDB remote protocol additions
1123 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1124 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1125 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1126 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1128 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1129 full 64-bit address. The command
1131 set remoteaddresssize 32
1133 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1134 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1137 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1138 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1140 maint packet heythere
1142 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1143 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1146 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1147 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1148 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1150 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1152 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1153 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1154 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1156 * mask-address variable for Mips
1158 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1159 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1160 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1162 * Higher serial baud rates
1164 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1165 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1166 to achieve all of these rates.)
1170 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1171 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1174 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1176 * New native configurations
1178 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1179 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1180 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1181 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1182 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1183 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1184 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1188 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1189 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1190 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1191 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1192 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1193 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1194 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1195 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1196 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1197 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1198 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1200 * New debugging protocols
1202 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1203 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1204 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1205 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1206 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1207 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1211 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1212 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1217 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1218 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1220 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1222 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1223 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1224 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1226 * Live range splitting
1228 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1229 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1230 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1234 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1235 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1239 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1240 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1241 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1246 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1251 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1252 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1253 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1254 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1255 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1256 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1260 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1261 the symbol at the specified address.
1265 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1266 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1267 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1268 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1269 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1273 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1274 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1275 of most MIPS variants.
1279 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1280 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1281 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1285 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1286 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1287 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1288 the possible architectures.
1290 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1292 * New native configurations
1294 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1295 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1296 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1297 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1298 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1299 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1303 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1304 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1305 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1306 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1307 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1309 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1313 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1314 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1315 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1316 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1317 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1321 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1323 * Windows 95/NT native
1325 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1326 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1327 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1328 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1329 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1331 * dont-repeat command
1333 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1334 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1335 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1336 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1338 * Send break instead of ^C
1340 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1341 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1342 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1344 * Remote protocol timeout
1346 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1347 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1348 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1350 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1352 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1353 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1354 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1355 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1356 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1358 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1359 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1360 automatically on hpux10.
1362 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1364 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1366 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1368 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1369 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1370 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1371 every character. The default value is 1050.
1373 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1375 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1376 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1377 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1378 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1379 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1380 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1382 * Speedups for remote debugging
1384 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1385 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1386 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1388 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1390 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1391 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1393 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1395 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1397 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1398 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1400 * Remote targets use caching
1402 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1403 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1404 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1405 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1406 off' turns the the data cache off.
1408 * Remote targets may have threads
1410 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1411 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1412 gdb/remote.c for details.
1416 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1417 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1418 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1419 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1420 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1421 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1422 sequence is something like
1424 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1426 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1430 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1431 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1432 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1433 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1434 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1435 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1436 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1437 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1441 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1442 but does simplify configuration and building.
1446 GDB now supports hpux10.
1448 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1450 * New native configurations
1452 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1453 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1454 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1455 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1459 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1460 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1461 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1462 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1465 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1467 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1468 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1469 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1470 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1471 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1473 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1475 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1476 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1479 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1481 To execute the command use:
1484 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1485 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1486 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1488 * New `if' and `while' commands
1490 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1491 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1492 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1493 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1494 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1495 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1496 if the expression is zero.
1498 * Fortran source language mode
1500 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1501 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1502 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1503 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1506 * Better HPUX support
1508 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1509 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1510 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1511 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1512 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1518 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1519 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1525 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1526 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1529 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1530 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1532 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1534 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1535 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1536 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1537 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1538 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1539 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1541 * New DOS host serial code
1543 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1544 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1547 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1549 * New "complete" command
1551 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1552 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1554 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1556 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1557 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1559 * Breakpoint hit counts
1561 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1562 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1563 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1564 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1565 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1568 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1570 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1571 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1572 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1574 * Shared library breakpoints
1576 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1577 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1579 * Hardware watchpoints
1581 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1582 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1584 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1588 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1589 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1591 * Improved Irix 5 support
1593 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1595 * Improved HPPA support
1597 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1599 * New native configurations
1601 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1602 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1603 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1604 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1608 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1609 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1612 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1614 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1615 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1619 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1620 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1622 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1624 * Irix 5 is now supported
1628 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1629 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1630 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1631 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1632 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1635 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1637 * User visible changes:
1641 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1642 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1643 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1644 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1645 debugging info for the mips target).
1647 * DEC Alpha native support
1649 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1650 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1651 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1652 Alpha-specific notes.
1654 * Preliminary thread implementation
1656 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1658 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1660 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1661 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1664 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1666 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1667 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1668 call methods, ...etc.
1670 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1672 * User visible changes:
1674 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1675 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1676 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1677 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1679 Filename completion now works.
1681 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1682 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1683 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1685 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1686 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1687 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1688 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1689 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1693 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1694 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1697 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1701 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1702 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1703 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1707 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1708 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1709 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1710 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1711 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1715 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1716 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1717 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1719 * New targets supported
1721 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1722 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1723 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1724 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1725 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1727 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1728 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1729 GO32 memory extender.
1731 * New remote protocols
1733 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1735 * New source languages supported
1737 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1738 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1739 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1742 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1744 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1746 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1747 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1748 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1749 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1750 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1751 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1753 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1755 * Faster and better demangling
1757 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1758 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1759 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1760 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1761 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1762 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1765 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1766 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1767 compiler does not actually implement.
1769 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1771 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1772 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1773 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1774 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1775 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1776 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1779 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1780 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1782 * Improved configure script
1784 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1785 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1786 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1787 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1789 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1790 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1791 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1792 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1793 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1794 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1796 * Documentation improvements
1798 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1799 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1800 before submitting changes.
1802 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1803 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1804 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1805 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1806 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1808 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1809 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1810 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1811 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1812 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1813 around this problem.
1817 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1818 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1819 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1822 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1823 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1825 * New native hosts supported
1827 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1828 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1830 * New targets supported
1832 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1834 * New file formats supported
1836 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1837 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1841 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1843 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1844 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1846 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1847 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1848 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1850 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1851 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1853 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1854 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1855 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1858 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1859 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1860 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1861 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1862 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1864 * Internal improvements
1866 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1867 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1869 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1870 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1871 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1872 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1873 shared code that handles any of them.
1875 * New command line options
1877 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1881 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1882 General Public License.
1884 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1886 * Host/native/target split
1888 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1889 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1890 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1891 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1892 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1894 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1895 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1896 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1897 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1898 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1899 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1900 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1902 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1903 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1904 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1906 * New hosts supported
1908 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1909 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1910 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1912 * New targets supported
1914 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1915 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1917 * New native hosts supported
1919 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1920 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1921 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1923 * New file formats supported
1925 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1926 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1927 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1931 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1932 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1933 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1935 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1937 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1938 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1939 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1940 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1944 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1945 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1946 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1948 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1952 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1953 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1956 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1957 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1959 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1960 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1961 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1962 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1963 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1964 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1966 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1967 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1968 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1969 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1973 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1974 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1975 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1976 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1977 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1979 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1980 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1981 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1982 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1986 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1987 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1988 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1989 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1990 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1991 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1992 each instruction being stepped through.
1994 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1995 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1997 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1998 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1999 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2000 processor with a serial port.
2004 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2005 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2006 supported, and what files each one uses.
2010 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2011 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2012 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2013 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2015 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2016 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2017 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2018 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2022 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2023 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2024 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2025 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2026 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2029 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2032 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2034 * Better support for C++ function names
2036 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2037 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2038 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2039 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2040 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2042 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2043 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2044 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2045 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2046 for the list of formats.
2048 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2050 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2051 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2052 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2053 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2054 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2055 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2058 * New 'maintenance' command
2060 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2061 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2062 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2064 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2065 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2066 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2067 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2068 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2069 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2071 The following commands are new:
2073 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2074 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2075 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2077 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2079 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2080 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2081 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2082 read after argv processing.
2084 * New hosts supported
2086 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2088 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2090 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2091 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2092 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2093 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2094 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2097 * New targets supported
2099 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2101 * More smarts about finding #include files
2103 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2104 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2105 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2106 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2107 the one that contains your sources.
2109 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2110 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2111 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2113 * Interesting infernals change
2115 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2116 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2117 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2118 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2120 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2122 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2123 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2124 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2126 See the ChangeLog for details.
2128 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2130 * New machines supported (host and target)
2132 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2134 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2136 * New malloc package
2138 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2139 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2140 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2141 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2142 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2143 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2147 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2148 'help info proc' for details.
2150 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2152 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2153 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2156 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2158 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2159 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2160 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2161 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2162 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2163 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2165 * Cross byte order fixes
2167 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2168 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2170 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2172 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2173 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2174 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2175 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2176 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2177 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2178 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2179 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2180 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2181 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2183 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2184 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2185 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2186 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2188 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2189 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2190 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2193 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2195 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2196 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2197 shared across multiple host platforms.
2199 * longjmp() handling
2201 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2202 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2203 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2204 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2208 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2209 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2214 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2215 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2216 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2218 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2220 * New machines supported (host and target)
2222 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2224 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2225 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2227 * New machines supported (target)
2229 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2233 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2234 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2235 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2237 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2238 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2239 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2240 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2241 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2244 * New features for SVR4
2246 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2247 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2248 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2250 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2251 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2252 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2254 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2257 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2259 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2260 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2261 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2262 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2263 same code linked statically.
2267 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2268 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2269 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2270 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2271 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2272 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2276 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2277 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2278 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2281 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2283 * New machines supported (host and target)
2285 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2286 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2287 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2289 * Almost SCO Unix support
2291 We had hoped to support:
2292 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2293 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2294 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2295 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2297 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2299 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2300 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2301 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2307 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2308 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2309 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2313 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2314 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2315 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2317 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2319 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2320 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2321 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2323 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2324 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2325 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2326 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2329 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2330 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2331 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2332 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2335 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2336 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2339 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2340 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2341 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2344 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2346 * Improved configuration
2348 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2349 Porting BFD is simpler.
2353 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2354 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2355 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2356 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2360 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2362 * New host supported (not target)
2364 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2367 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2369 * Multiple source language support
2371 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2372 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2373 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2374 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2375 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2376 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2380 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2381 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2382 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2383 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2385 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2386 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2387 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2389 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2390 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2394 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2395 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2396 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2397 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2400 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2402 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2403 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2404 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2405 examining core files.
2409 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2412 * New machines supported (host and target)
2414 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2415 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2416 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2418 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2420 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2422 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2424 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2425 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2426 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2428 * New remote interfaces
2434 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2438 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2440 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2441 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2442 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2443 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2444 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2445 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2446 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2447 stub on the target system.
2449 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2451 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2452 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2453 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2455 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2456 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2459 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2461 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2462 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2464 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2465 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2466 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2468 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2469 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2470 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2471 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2473 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2474 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2475 it is already running. Default is ON.
2477 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2478 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2479 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2480 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2483 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2484 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2485 or the value of the environment variable
2488 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2489 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2492 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2493 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2494 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2496 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2497 history expansion will be performed on
2498 command line input. The default is OFF.
2500 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2501 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2502 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2504 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2505 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2506 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2509 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2510 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2511 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2514 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2515 ``set width'' instead.
2517 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2518 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2519 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2520 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2522 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2525 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2528 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2531 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2534 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2536 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2537 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2538 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2542 * Support for Shared Libraries
2544 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2545 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2546 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2547 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2548 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2549 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2550 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2551 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2553 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2554 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2555 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2557 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2562 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2563 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2564 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2565 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2566 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2567 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2569 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2571 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2573 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2574 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2575 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2578 * C++ multiple inheritance
2580 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2583 * C++ exception handling
2585 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2586 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2587 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2590 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2591 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2592 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2594 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2595 current stack frame.
2598 * Minor command changes
2600 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2601 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2602 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2604 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2605 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2606 frames without printing.
2608 * New directory command
2610 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2611 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2612 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2613 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2614 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2616 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2618 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2621 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2622 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2623 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2624 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils.git / blob