1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
7 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
8 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
9 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
11 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
12 now complete on file names.
14 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
15 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
16 For instance, consider:
18 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
19 # struct example variable;
22 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
23 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
25 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
26 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
32 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
35 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
36 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
37 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
39 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
41 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
42 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
43 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
45 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
48 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
49 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
51 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
52 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
53 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
55 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
56 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
58 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
60 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
62 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
63 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
65 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
66 list of section offsets.
68 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
69 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
72 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
73 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
74 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
76 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
78 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
79 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
81 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
82 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
83 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
85 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
86 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
88 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
93 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
94 available is determined at configure time.
98 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
102 Print the list of Ada tasks.
104 Print detailed information about task number N.
106 Print the task number of the current task.
108 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
112 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
114 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
116 maint set python print-stack
117 maint show python print-stack
118 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
121 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
123 set print symbol-loading
124 show print symbol-loading
125 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
129 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
134 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
136 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
137 show multiple-symbols
138 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
139 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
140 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
142 set breakpoint always-inserted
143 show breakpoint always-inserted
144 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
145 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
146 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
148 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
149 show arm fallback-mode
150 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
152 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
153 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
154 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
155 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
157 set disable-randomization
158 show disable-randomization
159 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
160 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
161 multiple debugging sessions.
164 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
165 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
166 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
167 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
172 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
177 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
179 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
181 * New native configurations
183 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
184 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
188 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
189 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
191 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
193 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
194 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
195 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
196 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
198 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
199 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
201 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
204 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
205 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
206 and in inlined functions.
208 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
209 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
210 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
212 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
214 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
215 registers on PowerPC targets.
217 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
218 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
220 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
221 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
223 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
224 extended-remote mode.
226 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
227 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
228 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
229 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
231 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
232 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
233 target architectures.
235 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
236 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
237 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
238 stored in two consecutive float registers.
240 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
243 * Improved support for debugging Ada
244 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
246 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
247 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
248 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
249 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
251 - Improved command completion in Ada
254 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
259 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
260 show print frame-arguments
261 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
262 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
267 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
274 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
283 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
286 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
290 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
292 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
294 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
295 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
296 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
298 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
299 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
300 -Bsymbolic linker option.
302 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
303 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
306 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
307 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
309 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
310 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
312 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
314 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
315 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
316 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
318 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
319 automatically displayed as character or string data.
321 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
322 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
325 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
326 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
327 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
329 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
332 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
333 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
334 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
336 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
338 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
340 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
341 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
342 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
344 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
345 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
347 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
348 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
349 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
350 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
351 Windows and SymbianOS).
353 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
354 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
356 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
357 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
363 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
364 when debugging using remote targets.
366 set mem inaccessible-by-default
367 show mem inaccessible-by-default
368 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
369 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
370 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
371 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
372 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
374 set breakpoint auto-hw
375 show breakpoint auto-hw
376 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
377 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
378 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
379 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
380 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
381 including "next" and "finish".
384 catch exception unhandled
385 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
388 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
392 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
393 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
394 an alias to "set sysroot".
397 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
398 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
401 * New native configurations
403 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
408 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
409 not query the target for its built-in description.
413 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
414 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
415 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
420 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
421 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
424 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
429 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
430 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
432 qXfer:libraries:read:
433 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
434 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
435 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
436 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
440 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
449 i[34567]86-*-netware*
450 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
451 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
453 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
456 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
457 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
466 * Other removed features
473 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
480 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
485 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
486 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
491 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
492 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
494 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
496 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
497 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
498 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
499 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
503 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
504 in debugging information.
508 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
509 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
511 set mips stack-arg-size
512 set mips saved-gpreg-size
514 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
516 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
521 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
523 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
524 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
525 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
527 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
528 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
531 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
532 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
534 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
535 stub provides the required support.
537 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
538 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
543 unset substitute-path
545 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
546 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
547 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
548 between compilation and debugging.
552 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
553 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
554 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
558 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
560 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
561 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
563 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
568 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
569 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
570 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
571 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
575 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
576 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
578 qXfer:memory-map:read:
579 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
580 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
585 Erase and program a flash memory device.
587 * Removed remote packets
590 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
591 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
593 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
597 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
599 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
603 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
604 only if it doesn't already have a value.
606 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
608 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
610 restart <n> Return the program state to a
611 previously saved state.
613 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
615 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
617 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
618 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
620 info forks List forks of the user program that
621 are available to be debugged.
623 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
624 forks of the user program that are
625 available to be debugged.
627 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
628 that are available to be debugged (and
629 kill the forked process).
631 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
632 that are available to be debugged (and
633 allow the process to continue).
637 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
639 * Improved Windows host support
641 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
642 native console support, and remote communications using either
643 network sockets or serial ports.
645 * Improved Modula-2 language support
647 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
648 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
649 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
650 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
651 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
652 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
656 The ARM rdi-share module.
658 The Netware NLM debug server.
660 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
662 * New native configurations
664 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
665 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
669 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
671 * New command line options
673 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
674 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
675 the child (debugged) program exited with.
676 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
677 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
678 specified multiple times and in conjunction
679 with the --command (-x) option.
681 * Deprecated commands removed
683 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
687 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
688 othernames set arm disassembler
689 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
690 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
691 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
694 * New BSD user-level threads support
696 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
697 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
700 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
701 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
702 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
704 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
705 are not yet supported.
707 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
708 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
710 * REMOVED configurations and files
712 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
713 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
714 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
716 * New "set print array-indexes" command
718 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
719 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
722 * VAX floating point support
724 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
726 * User-defined command support
728 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
729 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
730 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
732 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
734 * New command line option
736 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
739 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
741 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
742 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
743 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
744 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
745 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
747 * Internationalization
749 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
750 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
751 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
755 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
756 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
757 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
759 * New native configurations
761 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
765 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
766 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
768 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
770 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
771 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
772 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
775 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
776 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
777 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
789 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
790 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
792 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
794 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
795 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
796 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
806 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
808 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
810 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
811 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
814 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
816 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
817 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
818 IRIX long double values).
822 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
823 command. This problem has been fixed.
825 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
827 * Fix for ``many threads''
829 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
830 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
833 ptrace: No such process.
834 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
836 This problem has been fixed.
838 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
840 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
843 * New ``start'' command.
845 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
847 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
849 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
850 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
851 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
853 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
854 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
855 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
856 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
857 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
858 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
859 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
860 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
861 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
863 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
865 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
866 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
867 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
868 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
869 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
871 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
872 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
873 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
875 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
877 * New native configurations
879 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
880 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
881 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
882 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
883 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
884 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
885 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
887 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
889 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
890 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
891 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
892 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
893 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
894 work, was also included.
896 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
897 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
907 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
908 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
910 * REMOVED configurations and files
912 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
913 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
914 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
915 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
916 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
917 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
918 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
919 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
920 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
922 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
924 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
926 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
928 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
929 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
930 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
931 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
934 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
936 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
937 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
938 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
939 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
940 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
941 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
944 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
946 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
948 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
949 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
950 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
952 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
954 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
955 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
957 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
959 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
960 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
961 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
963 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
965 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
966 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
968 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
970 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
971 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
972 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
974 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
976 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
977 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
978 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
980 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
982 * Removed --with-mmalloc
984 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
985 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
987 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
989 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
990 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
991 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
992 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
994 * Revised SPARC target
996 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
997 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
998 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
999 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1000 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1004 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1005 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1006 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1009 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1011 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1012 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1015 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1017 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1018 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1019 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1020 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1021 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1022 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1023 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1024 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1025 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1027 * New native configurations
1029 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1030 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1031 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1032 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1033 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1035 * New debugging protocols
1037 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1039 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1041 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1042 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1043 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1045 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1047 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1048 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1049 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1050 permanently REMOVED.
1052 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1053 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1054 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1055 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1056 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1057 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1058 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1059 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1060 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1061 sonymips mips-sony-*
1062 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1064 * REMOVED configurations and files
1066 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1067 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1068 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1069 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1070 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1071 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1072 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1073 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1074 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1075 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1076 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1077 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1078 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1079 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1080 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1081 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1082 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1084 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1088 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1089 integrated into GDB.
1091 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1093 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1094 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1095 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1098 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1099 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1100 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1104 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1105 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1106 remote protocol documentation for details.
1108 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1110 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1111 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1112 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1115 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1117 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1118 per-thread variables.
1120 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1122 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1123 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1125 * Separate debug info.
1127 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1128 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1129 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1130 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1131 and optional debug files.
1133 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1135 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1136 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1139 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1140 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1144 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1145 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1146 considered "useable".
1148 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1150 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1151 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1154 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1156 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1157 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1159 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1161 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1162 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1165 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1167 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1168 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1172 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1173 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1174 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1175 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1176 data, for more informative profiling results.
1178 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1180 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1181 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1182 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1184 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1187 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1188 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1189 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1190 in a subsequent -var-update.
1192 * New native configurations.
1194 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1196 * Multi-arched targets.
1198 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1199 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1201 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1203 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1204 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1205 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1206 permanently REMOVED.
1208 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1209 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1210 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1211 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1212 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1213 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1214 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1215 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1216 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1217 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1218 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1219 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1221 * REMOVED configurations and files
1224 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1225 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1226 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1227 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1228 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1229 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1231 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1232 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1233 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1234 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1235 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1236 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1238 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1240 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1241 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1242 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1243 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1244 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1246 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1248 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1250 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1251 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1252 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1253 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1254 shared libs like mad''.
1256 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1258 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1259 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1260 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1261 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1263 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1265 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1266 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1269 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1270 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1272 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1273 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1275 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1276 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1277 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1278 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1280 * Multi-arched targets.
1282 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1283 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1285 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1286 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1287 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1291 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1294 * New native configurations
1296 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1297 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1298 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1299 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1301 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1303 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1304 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1305 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1306 permanently REMOVED.
1308 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1309 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1310 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1311 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1312 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1313 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1314 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1315 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1316 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1317 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1319 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1320 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1322 * OBSOLETE languages
1324 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1326 * REMOVED configurations and files
1328 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1329 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1330 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1331 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1332 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1334 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1336 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1338 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1339 commands. The default is 1024.
1341 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1343 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1345 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1347 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1348 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1349 from a file into memory (restore).
1351 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1353 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1354 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1355 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1357 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1365 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1366 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1367 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1369 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1370 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1371 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1373 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1374 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1375 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1377 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1378 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1379 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1381 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1383 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1385 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1386 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1387 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1388 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1389 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1390 (notably embedded) targets.
1392 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1394 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1395 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1396 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1397 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1399 * New command line option
1401 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1403 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1405 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1406 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1407 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1408 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1409 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1410 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1411 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1412 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1413 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1414 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1416 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1418 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1419 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1421 * New native configurations
1423 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1424 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1425 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1426 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1430 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1432 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1434 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1435 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1436 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1437 permanently REMOVED.
1439 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1440 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1441 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1442 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1443 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1445 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1447 * REMOVED configurations and files
1449 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1451 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1452 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1453 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1454 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1455 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1456 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1457 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1458 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1459 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1460 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1461 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1463 * Changes to command line processing
1465 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1466 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1468 * Changes to key bindings
1470 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1472 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1474 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1476 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1479 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1481 Numerous documentation fixes.
1483 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1485 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1487 * New native configurations
1489 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1490 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1491 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1492 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1493 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1494 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1498 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1500 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1502 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1504 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1505 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1506 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1507 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1508 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1510 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1511 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1512 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1513 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1514 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1515 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1516 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1517 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1519 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1520 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1522 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1523 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1524 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1525 permanently REMOVED.
1527 * REMOVED configurations and files
1529 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1530 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1532 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1536 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1538 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1539 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1544 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1546 * The MI enabled by default.
1548 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1549 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1550 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1551 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1552 which is now deprecated.
1554 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1556 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1557 main features are supported:
1559 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1561 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1564 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1566 - a Pascal expression parser.
1568 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1570 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1572 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1574 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1575 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1577 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1579 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1581 * Changes in completion.
1583 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1584 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1585 users expect at the shell prompt.
1587 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1588 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1589 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1590 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1591 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1592 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1593 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1595 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1597 * New platform-independent commands:
1599 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1600 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1601 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1603 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1605 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1606 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1607 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1609 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1611 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1612 multi-threaded programs though.
1614 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1616 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1618 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1619 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1622 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1624 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1625 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1626 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1627 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1628 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1631 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1632 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1633 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1635 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1637 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1638 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1640 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1641 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1644 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1645 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1646 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1647 a given linear address.
1649 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1650 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1651 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1653 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1655 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1657 * Changes in documentation.
1659 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1660 Documentation License.
1662 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1665 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1667 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1670 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1671 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1672 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1674 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1676 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1677 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1678 contents of this file.
1682 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1684 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1686 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1688 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1689 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1690 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1691 greater level of detail.
1693 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1695 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1696 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1697 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1700 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1702 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1703 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1704 machines ``out of the box''.
1706 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1707 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1708 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1709 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1710 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1712 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1713 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1714 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1715 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1716 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1718 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1719 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1722 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1725 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1726 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1727 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1728 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1730 * New native configurations
1732 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1733 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1737 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1738 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1739 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1740 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1742 * OBSOLETE configurations
1744 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1745 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1747 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1750 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1751 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1752 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1753 be permanently REMOVED.
1755 * Gould support removed
1757 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1759 * New features for SVR4
1761 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1762 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1763 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1765 * Many C++ enhancements
1767 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1768 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1770 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1772 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1773 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1774 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1775 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1777 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1778 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1780 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1782 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1783 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1784 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1786 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1787 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1789 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1791 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1792 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1793 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1795 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1797 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1798 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1799 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1801 * ``apropos'' command added.
1803 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1804 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1805 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1809 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1810 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1811 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1812 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1813 enabled by configuring with:
1815 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1817 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1819 * New native configurations
1821 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1822 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1823 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1827 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1828 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1829 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1831 * OBSOLETE configurations
1833 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1835 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1836 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1837 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1838 be permanently REMOVED.
1842 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1843 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1844 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1845 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1846 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1848 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1853 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1855 * set extension-language
1857 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1858 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1859 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1860 set extension-language .c c++
1861 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1862 and their associated languages.
1864 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1866 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1867 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1868 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1872 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1873 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1875 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1876 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1878 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1879 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1880 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1881 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1882 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1883 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1884 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1885 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1887 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1888 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1889 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1890 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1894 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1895 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1896 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1897 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1898 for xdb and dbx commands.
1902 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1903 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1904 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1906 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1907 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1908 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1910 * Debugging across forks
1912 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1917 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1918 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1919 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1921 * GDB remote protocol additions
1923 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1924 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1925 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1926 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1928 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1929 full 64-bit address. The command
1931 set remoteaddresssize 32
1933 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1934 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1937 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1938 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1940 maint packet heythere
1942 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1943 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1946 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1947 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1948 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1950 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1952 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1953 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1954 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1956 * mask-address variable for Mips
1958 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1959 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1960 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1962 * Higher serial baud rates
1964 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1965 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1966 to achieve all of these rates.)
1970 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1971 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1974 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1976 * New native configurations
1978 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1979 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1980 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1981 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1982 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1983 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1984 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1988 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1989 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1990 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1991 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1992 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1993 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1994 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1995 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1996 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1997 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1998 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2000 * New debugging protocols
2002 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2003 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2004 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2005 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2006 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2007 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2011 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2012 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2017 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2018 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2020 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2022 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2023 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2024 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2026 * Live range splitting
2028 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2029 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2030 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2034 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2035 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2039 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2040 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2041 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2046 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2051 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2052 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2053 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2054 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2055 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2056 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2060 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2061 the symbol at the specified address.
2065 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2066 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2067 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2068 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2069 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2073 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2074 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2075 of most MIPS variants.
2079 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2080 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2081 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2085 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2086 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2087 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2088 the possible architectures.
2090 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2092 * New native configurations
2094 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2095 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2096 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2097 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2098 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2099 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2103 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2104 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2105 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2106 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2107 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2109 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2113 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2114 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2115 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2116 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2117 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2121 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2123 * Windows 95/NT native
2125 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2126 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2127 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2128 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2129 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2131 * dont-repeat command
2133 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2134 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2135 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2136 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2138 * Send break instead of ^C
2140 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2141 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2142 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2144 * Remote protocol timeout
2146 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2147 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2148 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2150 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2152 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2153 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2154 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2155 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2156 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2158 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2159 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2160 automatically on hpux10.
2162 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2164 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2166 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2168 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2169 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2170 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2171 every character. The default value is 1050.
2173 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2175 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2176 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2177 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2178 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2179 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2180 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2182 * Speedups for remote debugging
2184 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2185 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2186 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2188 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2190 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2191 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2193 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2195 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2197 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2198 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2200 * Remote targets use caching
2202 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2203 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2204 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2205 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2206 off' turns the the data cache off.
2208 * Remote targets may have threads
2210 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2211 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2212 gdb/remote.c for details.
2216 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2217 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2218 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2219 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2220 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2221 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2222 sequence is something like
2224 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2226 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2230 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2231 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2232 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2233 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2234 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2235 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2236 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2237 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2241 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2242 but does simplify configuration and building.
2246 GDB now supports hpux10.
2248 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2250 * New native configurations
2252 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2253 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2254 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2255 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2259 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2260 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2261 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2262 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2265 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2267 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2268 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2269 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2270 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2271 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2273 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2275 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2276 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2279 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2281 To execute the command use:
2284 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2285 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2286 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2288 * New `if' and `while' commands
2290 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2291 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2292 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2293 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2294 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2295 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2296 if the expression is zero.
2298 * Fortran source language mode
2300 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2301 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2302 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2303 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2306 * Better HPUX support
2308 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2309 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2310 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2311 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2312 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2318 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2319 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2325 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2326 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2329 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2330 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2332 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2334 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2335 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2336 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2337 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2338 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2339 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2341 * New DOS host serial code
2343 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2344 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2347 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2349 * New "complete" command
2351 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2352 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2354 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2356 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2357 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2359 * Breakpoint hit counts
2361 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2362 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2363 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2364 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2365 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2368 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2370 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2371 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2372 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2374 * Shared library breakpoints
2376 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2377 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2379 * Hardware watchpoints
2381 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2382 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2384 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2388 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2389 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2391 * Improved Irix 5 support
2393 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2395 * Improved HPPA support
2397 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2399 * New native configurations
2401 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2402 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2403 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2404 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2408 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2409 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2412 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2414 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2415 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2419 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2420 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2422 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2424 * Irix 5 is now supported
2428 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2429 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2430 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2431 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2432 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2435 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2437 * User visible changes:
2441 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2442 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2443 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2444 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2445 debugging info for the mips target).
2447 * DEC Alpha native support
2449 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2450 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2451 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2452 Alpha-specific notes.
2454 * Preliminary thread implementation
2456 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2458 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2460 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2461 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2464 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2466 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2467 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2468 call methods, ...etc.
2470 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2472 * User visible changes:
2474 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2475 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2476 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2477 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2479 Filename completion now works.
2481 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2482 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2483 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2485 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2486 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2487 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2488 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2489 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2493 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2494 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2497 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2501 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2502 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2503 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2507 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2508 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2509 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2510 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2511 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2515 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2516 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2517 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2519 * New targets supported
2521 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2522 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2523 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2524 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2525 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2527 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2528 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2529 GO32 memory extender.
2531 * New remote protocols
2533 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2535 * New source languages supported
2537 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2538 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2539 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2542 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2544 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2546 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2547 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2548 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2549 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2550 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2551 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2553 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2555 * Faster and better demangling
2557 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2558 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2559 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2560 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2561 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2562 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2565 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2566 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2567 compiler does not actually implement.
2569 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2571 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2572 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2573 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2574 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2575 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2576 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2579 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2580 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2582 * Improved configure script
2584 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2585 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2586 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2587 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2589 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2590 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2591 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2592 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2593 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2594 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2596 * Documentation improvements
2598 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2599 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2600 before submitting changes.
2602 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2603 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2604 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2605 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2606 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2608 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2609 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2610 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2611 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2612 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2613 around this problem.
2617 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2618 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2619 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2622 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2623 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2625 * New native hosts supported
2627 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2628 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2630 * New targets supported
2632 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2634 * New file formats supported
2636 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2637 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2641 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2643 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2644 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2646 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2647 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2648 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2650 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2651 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2653 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2654 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2655 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2658 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2659 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2660 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2661 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2662 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2664 * Internal improvements
2666 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2667 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2669 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2670 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2671 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2672 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2673 shared code that handles any of them.
2675 * New command line options
2677 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2681 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2682 General Public License.
2684 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2686 * Host/native/target split
2688 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2689 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2690 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2691 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2692 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2694 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2695 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2696 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2697 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2698 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2699 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2700 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2702 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2703 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2704 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2706 * New hosts supported
2708 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2709 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2710 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2712 * New targets supported
2714 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2715 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2717 * New native hosts supported
2719 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2720 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2721 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2723 * New file formats supported
2725 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2726 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2727 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2731 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2732 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2733 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2735 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2737 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2738 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2739 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2740 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2744 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2745 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2746 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2748 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2752 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2753 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2756 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2757 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2759 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2760 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2761 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2762 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2763 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2764 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2766 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2767 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2768 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2769 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2773 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2774 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2775 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2776 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2777 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2779 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2780 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2781 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2782 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2786 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2787 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2788 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2789 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2790 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2791 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2792 each instruction being stepped through.
2794 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2795 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2797 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2798 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2799 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2800 processor with a serial port.
2804 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2805 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2806 supported, and what files each one uses.
2810 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2811 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2812 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2813 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2815 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2816 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2817 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2818 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2822 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2823 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2824 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2825 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2826 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2829 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2832 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2834 * Better support for C++ function names
2836 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2837 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2838 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2839 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2840 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2842 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2843 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2844 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2845 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2846 for the list of formats.
2848 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2850 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2851 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2852 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2853 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2854 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2855 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2858 * New 'maintenance' command
2860 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2861 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2862 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2864 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2865 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2866 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2867 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2868 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2869 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2871 The following commands are new:
2873 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2874 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2875 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2877 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2879 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2880 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2881 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2882 read after argv processing.
2884 * New hosts supported
2886 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2888 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2890 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2891 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2892 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2893 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2894 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2897 * New targets supported
2899 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2901 * More smarts about finding #include files
2903 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2904 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2905 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2906 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2907 the one that contains your sources.
2909 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2910 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2911 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2913 * Interesting infernals change
2915 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2916 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2917 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2918 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2920 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2922 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2923 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2924 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2926 See the ChangeLog for details.
2928 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2930 * New machines supported (host and target)
2932 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2934 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2936 * New malloc package
2938 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2939 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2940 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2941 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2942 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2943 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2947 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2948 'help info proc' for details.
2950 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2952 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2953 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2956 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2958 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2959 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2960 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2961 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2962 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2963 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2965 * Cross byte order fixes
2967 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2968 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2970 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2972 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2973 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2974 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2975 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2976 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2977 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2978 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2979 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2980 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2981 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2983 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2984 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2985 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2986 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2988 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2989 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2990 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2993 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2995 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2996 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2997 shared across multiple host platforms.
2999 * longjmp() handling
3001 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3002 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3003 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3004 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3008 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3009 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3014 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3015 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3016 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3018 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3020 * New machines supported (host and target)
3022 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3024 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3025 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3027 * New machines supported (target)
3029 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3033 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3034 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3035 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3037 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3038 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3039 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3040 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3041 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3044 * New features for SVR4
3046 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3047 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3048 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3050 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3051 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3052 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3054 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3057 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3059 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3060 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3061 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3062 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3063 same code linked statically.
3067 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3068 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3069 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3070 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3071 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3072 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3076 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3077 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3078 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3081 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3083 * New machines supported (host and target)
3085 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3086 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3087 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3089 * Almost SCO Unix support
3091 We had hoped to support:
3092 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3093 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3094 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3095 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3097 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3099 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3100 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3101 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3107 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3108 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3109 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3113 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3114 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3115 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3117 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3119 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3120 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3121 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3123 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3124 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3125 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3126 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3129 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3130 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3131 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3132 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3135 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3136 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3139 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3140 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3141 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3144 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3146 * Improved configuration
3148 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3149 Porting BFD is simpler.
3153 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3154 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3155 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3156 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3160 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3162 * New host supported (not target)
3164 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3167 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3169 * Multiple source language support
3171 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3172 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3173 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3174 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3175 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3176 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3180 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3181 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3182 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3183 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3185 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3186 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3187 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3189 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3190 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3194 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3195 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3196 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3197 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3200 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3202 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3203 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3204 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3205 examining core files.
3209 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3212 * New machines supported (host and target)
3214 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3215 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3216 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3218 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3220 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3222 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3224 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3225 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3226 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3228 * New remote interfaces
3234 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3238 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3240 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3241 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3242 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3243 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3244 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3245 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3246 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3247 stub on the target system.
3249 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3251 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3252 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3253 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3255 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3256 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3259 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3261 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3262 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3264 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3265 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3266 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3268 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3269 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3270 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3271 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3273 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3274 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3275 it is already running. Default is ON.
3277 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3278 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3279 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3280 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3283 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3284 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3285 or the value of the environment variable
3288 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3289 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3292 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3293 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3294 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3296 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3297 history expansion will be performed on
3298 command line input. The default is OFF.
3300 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3301 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3302 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3304 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3305 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3306 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3309 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3310 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3311 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3314 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3315 ``set width'' instead.
3317 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3318 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3319 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3320 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3322 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3325 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3328 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3331 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3334 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3336 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3337 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3338 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3342 * Support for Shared Libraries
3344 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3345 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3346 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3347 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3348 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3349 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3350 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3351 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3353 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3354 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3355 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3357 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3362 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3363 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3364 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3365 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3366 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3367 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3369 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3371 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3373 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3374 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3375 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3378 * C++ multiple inheritance
3380 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3383 * C++ exception handling
3385 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3386 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3387 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3390 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3391 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3392 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3394 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3395 current stack frame.
3398 * Minor command changes
3400 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3401 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3402 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3404 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3405 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3406 frames without printing.
3408 * New directory command
3410 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3411 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3412 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3413 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3414 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3416 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3418 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3421 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3422 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3423 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3424 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils.git / blob