1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
6 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
8 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
9 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
10 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
11 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
14 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
16 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
17 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
18 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
19 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
20 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
21 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
24 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
26 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
28 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
29 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
30 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
32 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
34 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
35 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
37 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
39 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
40 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
41 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
43 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
45 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
46 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
48 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
50 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
51 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
52 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
54 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
56 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
57 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
58 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
60 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
62 * Removed --with-mmalloc
64 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
65 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
67 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
69 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
70 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
71 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
72 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
74 * Revised SPARC target
76 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
77 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
78 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
79 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
80 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
84 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
85 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
86 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
89 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
91 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
92 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
95 * C++ nested types and namespaces
97 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
98 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
99 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
100 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
101 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
102 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
103 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
104 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
105 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
107 * New native configurations
109 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
110 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
111 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
112 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
113 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
115 * New debugging protocols
117 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
119 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
121 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
122 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
123 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
125 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
127 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
128 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
129 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
132 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
133 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
134 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
135 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
136 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
137 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
138 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
139 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
140 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
142 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
144 * REMOVED configurations and files
146 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
147 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
148 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
149 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
150 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
151 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
152 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
153 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
154 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
155 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
156 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
157 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
158 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
159 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
160 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
161 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
162 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
164 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
168 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
171 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
173 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
174 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
175 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
178 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
179 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
184 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
185 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
186 remote protocol documentation for details.
188 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
190 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
191 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
192 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
195 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
197 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
198 per-thread variables.
200 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
202 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
203 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
205 * Separate debug info.
207 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
208 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
209 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
210 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
211 and optional debug files.
213 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
215 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
216 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
219 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
220 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
224 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
225 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
226 considered "useable".
228 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
230 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
231 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
234 * GDB supports logging output to a file
236 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
237 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
239 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
241 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
242 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
245 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
247 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
248 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
252 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
253 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
254 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
255 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
256 data, for more informative profiling results.
258 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
260 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
261 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
262 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
264 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
267 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
268 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
269 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
270 in a subsequent -var-update.
272 * New native configurations.
274 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
276 * Multi-arched targets.
278 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
279 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
281 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
283 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
284 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
285 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
288 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
289 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
290 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
291 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
292 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
293 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
294 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
295 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
296 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
297 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
298 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
299 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
301 * REMOVED configurations and files
304 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
305 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
306 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
307 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
308 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
309 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
311 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
312 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
313 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
314 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
315 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
316 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
318 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
320 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
321 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
322 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
323 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
324 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
326 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
328 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
330 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
331 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
332 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
333 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
334 shared libs like mad''.
336 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
338 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
339 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
340 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
341 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
343 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
345 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
346 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
349 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
350 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
352 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
353 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
355 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
356 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
357 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
358 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
360 * Multi-arched targets.
362 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
363 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
365 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
366 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
367 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
371 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
374 * New native configurations
376 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
377 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
378 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
379 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
381 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
383 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
384 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
385 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
388 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
389 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
390 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
391 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
392 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
393 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
394 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
395 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
396 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
397 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
399 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
400 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
404 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
406 * REMOVED configurations and files
408 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
409 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
410 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
411 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
412 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
414 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
416 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
418 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
419 commands. The default is 1024.
421 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
423 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
425 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
427 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
428 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
429 from a file into memory (restore).
431 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
433 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
434 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
435 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
437 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
445 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
446 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
447 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
449 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
450 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
451 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
453 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
454 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
455 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
457 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
458 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
459 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
461 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
463 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
465 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
466 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
467 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
468 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
469 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
470 (notably embedded) targets.
472 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
474 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
475 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
476 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
477 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
479 * New command line option
481 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
483 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
485 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
486 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
487 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
488 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
489 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
490 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
491 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
492 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
493 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
494 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
496 * Changes in ARM configurations.
498 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
499 configuration is fully multi-arch.
501 * New native configurations
503 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
504 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
505 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
506 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
510 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
512 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
514 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
515 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
516 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
519 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
520 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
521 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
522 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
523 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
525 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
527 * REMOVED configurations and files
529 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
531 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
532 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
533 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
534 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
535 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
536 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
537 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
538 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
539 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
540 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
541 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
543 * Changes to command line processing
545 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
546 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
548 * Changes to key bindings
550 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
552 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
554 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
556 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
559 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
561 Numerous documentation fixes.
563 Numerous testsuite fixes.
565 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
567 * New native configurations
569 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
570 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
571 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
572 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
574 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
578 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
580 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
582 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
584 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
585 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
586 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
587 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
588 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
590 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
591 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
592 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
593 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
594 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
595 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
596 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
597 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
599 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
600 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
602 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
603 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
604 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
607 * REMOVED configurations and files
609 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
610 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
612 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
616 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
618 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
619 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
624 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
626 * The MI enabled by default.
628 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
629 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
630 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
631 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
632 which is now deprecated.
634 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
636 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
637 main features are supported:
639 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
641 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
644 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
646 - a Pascal expression parser.
648 However, some important features are not yet supported.
650 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
652 - there are some problems with boolean types;
654 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
655 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
657 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
659 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
661 * Changes in completion.
663 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
664 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
665 users expect at the shell prompt.
667 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
668 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
669 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
670 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
671 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
672 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
673 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
675 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
677 * New platform-independent commands:
679 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
680 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
681 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
683 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
685 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
686 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
687 many threads as your system allows you to have.
689 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
691 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
692 multi-threaded programs though.
694 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
696 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
698 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
699 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
702 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
704 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
705 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
706 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
707 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
708 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
711 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
712 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
713 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
715 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
717 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
718 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
720 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
721 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
724 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
725 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
726 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
727 a given linear address.
729 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
730 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
731 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
733 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
735 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
737 * Changes in documentation.
739 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
740 Documentation License.
742 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
745 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
747 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
750 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
751 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
752 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
754 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
756 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
757 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
758 contents of this file.
762 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
764 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
766 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
768 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
769 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
770 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
771 greater level of detail.
773 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
775 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
776 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
777 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
780 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
782 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
783 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
784 machines ``out of the box''.
786 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
787 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
788 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
789 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
790 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
792 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
793 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
794 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
795 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
796 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
798 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
799 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
802 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
805 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
806 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
807 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
808 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
810 * New native configurations
812 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
813 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
817 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
818 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
819 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
820 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
822 * OBSOLETE configurations
824 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
825 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
827 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
830 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
831 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
832 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
833 be permanently REMOVED.
835 * Gould support removed
837 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
839 * New features for SVR4
841 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
842 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
843 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
845 * Many C++ enhancements
847 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
848 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
850 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
852 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
853 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
854 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
855 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
857 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
858 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
860 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
862 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
863 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
864 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
866 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
867 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
869 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
871 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
872 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
873 include ``set remote P-packet''.
875 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
877 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
878 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
879 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
881 * ``apropos'' command added.
883 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
884 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
885 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
889 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
890 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
891 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
892 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
893 enabled by configuring with:
895 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
897 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
899 * New native configurations
901 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
902 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
903 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
907 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
908 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
909 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
911 * OBSOLETE configurations
913 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
915 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
916 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
917 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
918 be permanently REMOVED.
922 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
923 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
924 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
925 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
926 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
927 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
928 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
933 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
935 * set extension-language
937 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
938 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
939 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
940 set extension-language .c c++
941 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
942 and their associated languages.
944 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
946 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
947 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
948 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
952 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
953 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
955 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
956 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
958 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
959 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
960 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
961 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
962 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
963 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
964 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
965 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
967 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
968 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
969 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
970 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
974 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
975 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
976 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
977 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
978 for xdb and dbx commands.
982 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
983 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
984 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
986 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
987 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
988 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
990 * Debugging across forks
992 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
997 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
998 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
999 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1001 * GDB remote protocol additions
1003 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1004 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1005 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1006 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1008 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1009 full 64-bit address. The command
1011 set remoteaddresssize 32
1013 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1014 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1017 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1018 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1020 maint packet heythere
1022 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1023 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1026 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1027 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1028 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1030 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1032 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1033 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1034 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1036 * mask-address variable for Mips
1038 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1039 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1040 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1042 * Higher serial baud rates
1044 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1045 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1046 to achieve all of these rates.)
1050 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1051 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1054 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1056 * New native configurations
1058 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1059 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1060 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1061 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1062 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1063 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1064 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1068 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1069 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1070 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1071 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1072 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1073 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1074 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1075 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1076 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1077 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1078 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1080 * New debugging protocols
1082 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1083 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1084 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1085 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1086 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1087 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1091 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1092 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1097 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1098 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1100 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1102 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1103 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1104 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1106 * Live range splitting
1108 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1109 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1110 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1114 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1115 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1119 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1120 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1121 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1126 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1131 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1132 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1133 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1134 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1135 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1136 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1140 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1141 the symbol at the specified address.
1145 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1146 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1147 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1148 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1149 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1153 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1154 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1155 of most MIPS variants.
1159 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1160 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1161 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1165 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1166 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1167 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1168 the possible architectures.
1170 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1172 * New native configurations
1174 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1175 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1176 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1177 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1178 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1179 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1183 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1184 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1185 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1186 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1187 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1189 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1193 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1194 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1195 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1196 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1197 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1201 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1203 * Windows 95/NT native
1205 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1206 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1207 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1208 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1209 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1211 * dont-repeat command
1213 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1214 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1215 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1216 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1218 * Send break instead of ^C
1220 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1221 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1222 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1224 * Remote protocol timeout
1226 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1227 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1228 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1230 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1232 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1233 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1234 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1235 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1236 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1238 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1239 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1240 automatically on hpux10.
1242 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1244 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1246 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1248 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1249 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1250 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1251 every character. The default value is 1050.
1253 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1255 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1256 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1257 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1258 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1259 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1260 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1262 * Speedups for remote debugging
1264 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1265 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1266 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1268 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1270 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1271 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1273 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1275 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1277 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1278 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1280 * Remote targets use caching
1282 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1283 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1284 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1285 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1286 off' turns the the data cache off.
1288 * Remote targets may have threads
1290 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1291 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1292 gdb/remote.c for details.
1296 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1297 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1298 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1299 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1300 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1301 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1302 sequence is something like
1304 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1306 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1310 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1311 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1312 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1313 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1314 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1315 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1316 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1317 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1321 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1322 but does simplify configuration and building.
1326 GDB now supports hpux10.
1328 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1330 * New native configurations
1332 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1333 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1334 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1335 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1339 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1340 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1341 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1342 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1345 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1347 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1348 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1349 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1350 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1351 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1353 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1355 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1356 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1359 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1361 To execute the command use:
1364 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1365 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1366 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1368 * New `if' and `while' commands
1370 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1371 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1372 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1373 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1374 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1375 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1376 if the expression is zero.
1378 * Fortran source language mode
1380 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1381 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1382 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1383 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1386 * Better HPUX support
1388 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1389 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1390 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1391 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1392 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1398 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1399 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1405 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1406 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1409 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1410 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1412 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1414 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1415 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1416 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1417 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1418 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1419 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1421 * New DOS host serial code
1423 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1424 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1427 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1429 * New "complete" command
1431 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1432 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1434 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1436 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1437 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1439 * Breakpoint hit counts
1441 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1442 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1443 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1444 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1445 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1448 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1450 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1451 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1452 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1454 * Shared library breakpoints
1456 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1457 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1459 * Hardware watchpoints
1461 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1462 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1464 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1468 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1469 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1471 * Improved Irix 5 support
1473 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1475 * Improved HPPA support
1477 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1479 * New native configurations
1481 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1482 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1483 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1484 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1488 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1489 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1492 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1494 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1495 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1499 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1500 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1502 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1504 * Irix 5 is now supported
1508 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1509 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1510 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1511 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1512 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1515 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1517 * User visible changes:
1521 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1522 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1523 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1524 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1525 debugging info for the mips target).
1527 * DEC Alpha native support
1529 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1530 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1531 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1532 Alpha-specific notes.
1534 * Preliminary thread implementation
1536 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1538 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1540 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1541 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1544 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1546 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1547 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1548 call methods, ...etc.
1550 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1552 * User visible changes:
1554 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1555 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1556 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1557 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1559 Filename completion now works.
1561 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1562 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1563 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1565 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1566 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1567 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1568 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1569 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1573 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1574 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1577 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1581 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1582 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1583 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1587 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1588 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1589 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1590 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1591 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1595 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1596 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1597 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1599 * New targets supported
1601 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1602 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1603 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1604 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1605 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1607 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1608 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1609 GO32 memory extender.
1611 * New remote protocols
1613 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1615 * New source languages supported
1617 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1618 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1619 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1622 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1624 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1626 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1627 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1628 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1629 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1630 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1631 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1633 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1635 * Faster and better demangling
1637 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1638 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1639 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1640 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1641 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1642 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1645 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1646 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1647 compiler does not actually implement.
1649 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1651 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1652 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1653 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1654 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1655 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1656 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1659 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1660 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1662 * Improved configure script
1664 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1665 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1666 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1667 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1669 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1670 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1671 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1672 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1673 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1674 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1676 * Documentation improvements
1678 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1679 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1680 before submitting changes.
1682 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1683 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1684 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1685 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1686 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1688 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1689 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1690 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1691 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1692 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1693 around this problem.
1697 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1698 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1699 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1702 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1703 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1705 * New native hosts supported
1707 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1708 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1710 * New targets supported
1712 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1714 * New file formats supported
1716 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1717 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1721 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1723 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1724 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1726 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1727 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1728 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1730 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1731 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1733 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1734 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1735 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1738 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1739 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1740 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1741 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1742 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1744 * Internal improvements
1746 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1747 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1749 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1750 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1751 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1752 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1753 shared code that handles any of them.
1755 * New command line options
1757 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1761 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1762 General Public License.
1764 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1766 * Host/native/target split
1768 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1769 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1770 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1771 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1772 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1774 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1775 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1776 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1777 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1778 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1779 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1780 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1782 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1783 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1784 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1786 * New hosts supported
1788 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1789 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1790 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1792 * New targets supported
1794 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1795 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1797 * New native hosts supported
1799 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1800 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1801 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1803 * New file formats supported
1805 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1806 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1807 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1811 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1812 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1813 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1815 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1817 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1818 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1819 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1820 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1824 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1825 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1826 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1828 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1832 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1833 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1836 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1837 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1839 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1840 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1841 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1842 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1843 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1844 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1846 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1847 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1848 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1849 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1853 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1854 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1855 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1856 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1857 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1859 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1860 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1861 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1862 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1866 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1867 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1868 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1869 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1870 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1871 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1872 each instruction being stepped through.
1874 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1875 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1877 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1878 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1879 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1880 processor with a serial port.
1884 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1885 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1886 supported, and what files each one uses.
1890 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1891 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1892 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1893 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1895 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1896 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1897 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1898 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1902 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1903 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1904 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1905 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1906 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1907 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1909 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1912 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1914 * Better support for C++ function names
1916 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1917 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1918 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1919 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1920 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1922 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1923 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1924 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1925 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1926 for the list of formats.
1928 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1930 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1931 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1932 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1933 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1934 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1935 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1938 * New 'maintenance' command
1940 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1941 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1942 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1944 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1945 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1946 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1947 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1948 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1949 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1951 The following commands are new:
1953 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1954 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1955 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1957 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1959 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1960 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1961 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1962 read after argv processing.
1964 * New hosts supported
1966 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1968 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1970 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1971 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1972 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1973 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1974 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1977 * New targets supported
1979 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1981 * More smarts about finding #include files
1983 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1984 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1985 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1986 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1987 the one that contains your sources.
1989 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1990 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1991 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1993 * Interesting infernals change
1995 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1996 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1997 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1998 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2000 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2002 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2003 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2004 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2006 See the ChangeLog for details.
2008 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2010 * New machines supported (host and target)
2012 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2014 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2016 * New malloc package
2018 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2019 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2020 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2021 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2022 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2023 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2027 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2028 'help info proc' for details.
2030 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2032 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2033 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2036 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2038 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2039 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2040 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2041 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2042 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2043 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2045 * Cross byte order fixes
2047 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2048 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2050 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2052 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2053 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2054 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2055 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2056 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2057 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2058 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2059 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2060 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2061 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2063 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2064 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2065 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2066 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2068 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2069 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2070 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2073 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2075 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2076 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2077 shared across multiple host platforms.
2079 * longjmp() handling
2081 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2082 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2083 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2084 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2088 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2089 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2094 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2095 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2096 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2098 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2100 * New machines supported (host and target)
2102 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2104 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2105 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2107 * New machines supported (target)
2109 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2113 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2114 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2115 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2117 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2118 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2119 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2120 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2121 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2124 * New features for SVR4
2126 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2127 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2128 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2130 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2131 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2132 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2134 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2135 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2137 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2139 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2140 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2141 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2142 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2143 same code linked statically.
2147 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2148 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2149 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2150 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2151 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2152 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2156 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2157 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2158 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2161 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2163 * New machines supported (host and target)
2165 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2166 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2167 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2169 * Almost SCO Unix support
2171 We had hoped to support:
2172 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2173 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2174 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2175 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2177 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2179 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2180 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2181 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2182 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2187 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2188 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2189 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2193 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2194 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2195 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2197 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2199 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2200 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2201 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2203 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2204 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2205 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2206 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2209 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2210 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2211 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2212 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2215 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2216 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2219 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2220 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2221 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2224 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2226 * Improved configuration
2228 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2229 Porting BFD is simpler.
2233 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2234 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2235 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2236 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2240 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2242 * New host supported (not target)
2244 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2247 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2249 * Multiple source language support
2251 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2252 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2253 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2254 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2255 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2256 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2260 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2261 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2262 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2263 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2265 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2266 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2267 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2269 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2270 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2274 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2275 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2276 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2277 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2280 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2282 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2283 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2284 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2285 examining core files.
2289 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2292 * New machines supported (host and target)
2294 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2295 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2296 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2298 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2300 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2302 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2304 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2305 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2306 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2308 * New remote interfaces
2314 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2318 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2320 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2321 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2322 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2323 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2324 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2325 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2326 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2327 stub on the target system.
2329 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2331 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2332 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2333 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2335 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2336 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2339 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2341 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2342 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2344 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2345 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2346 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2348 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2349 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2350 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2351 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2353 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2354 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2355 it is already running. Default is ON.
2357 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2358 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2359 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2360 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2363 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2364 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2365 or the value of the environment variable
2368 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2369 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2372 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2373 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2374 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2376 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2377 history expansion will be performed on
2378 command line input. The default is OFF.
2380 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2381 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2382 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2384 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2385 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2386 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2389 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2390 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2391 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2394 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2395 ``set width'' instead.
2397 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2398 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2399 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2400 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2402 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2405 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2408 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2411 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2414 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2416 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2417 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2418 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2422 * Support for Shared Libraries
2424 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2425 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2426 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2427 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2428 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2429 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2430 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2431 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2433 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2434 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2435 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2437 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2442 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2443 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2444 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2445 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2446 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2447 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2449 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2451 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2453 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2454 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2455 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2458 * C++ multiple inheritance
2460 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2463 * C++ exception handling
2465 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2466 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2467 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2470 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2471 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2472 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2474 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2475 current stack frame.
2478 * Minor command changes
2480 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2481 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2482 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2484 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2485 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2486 frames without printing.
2488 * New directory command
2490 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2491 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2492 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2493 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2494 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2496 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2498 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2501 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2502 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2503 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2504 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / FreeBSD / releng / 9.2.git / blob