1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.7
6 * New native configurations
8 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
12 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
14 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
16 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
17 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
18 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
19 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
23 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
24 show print frame-arguments
25 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
26 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
28 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
29 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
31 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
34 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
35 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
36 and in inlined functions.
38 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
39 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
40 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
42 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
44 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
45 registers on PowerPC targets.
47 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
48 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
50 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
51 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
53 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
56 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
57 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
58 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
59 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
61 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
62 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
65 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
66 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
67 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
68 stored in two consecutive float registers.
75 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
82 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
91 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
93 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
97 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
101 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
103 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
105 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
106 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
107 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
109 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
110 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
111 -Bsymbolic linker option.
113 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
114 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
117 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
118 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
120 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
121 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
123 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
125 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
126 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
127 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
129 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
130 automatically displayed as character or string data.
132 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
133 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
136 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
137 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
138 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
140 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
143 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
144 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
145 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
147 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
149 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
151 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
152 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
153 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
155 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
156 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
158 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
159 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
160 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
161 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
162 Windows and SymbianOS).
164 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
165 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
167 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
168 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
174 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
175 when debugging using remote targets.
177 set mem inaccessible-by-default
178 show mem inaccessible-by-default
179 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
180 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
181 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
182 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
183 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
185 set breakpoint auto-hw
186 show breakpoint auto-hw
187 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
188 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
189 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
190 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
191 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
192 including "next" and "finish".
195 catch exception unhandled
196 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
199 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
203 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
204 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
205 an alias to "set sysroot".
208 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
209 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
212 * New native configurations
214 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
219 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
220 not query the target for its built-in description.
224 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
225 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
226 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
231 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
232 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
235 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
240 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
241 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
243 qXfer:libraries:read:
244 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
245 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
246 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
247 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
251 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
260 i[34567]86-*-netware*
261 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
262 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
264 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
267 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
268 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
277 * Other removed features
284 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
291 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
296 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
297 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
302 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
303 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
305 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
307 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
308 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
309 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
310 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
314 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
315 in debugging information.
319 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
320 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
322 set mips stack-arg-size
323 set mips saved-gpreg-size
325 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
327 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
332 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
334 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
335 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
336 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
338 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
339 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
342 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
343 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
345 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
346 stub provides the required support.
348 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
349 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
354 unset substitute-path
356 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
357 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
358 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
359 between compilation and debugging.
363 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
364 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
365 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
369 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
371 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
372 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
374 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
379 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
380 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
381 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
382 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
386 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
387 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
389 qXfer:memory-map:read:
390 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
391 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
396 Erase and program a flash memory device.
398 * Removed remote packets
401 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
402 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
404 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
408 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
410 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
414 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
415 only if it doesn't already have a value.
417 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
419 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
421 restart <n> Return the program state to a
422 previously saved state.
424 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
426 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
428 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
429 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
431 info forks List forks of the user program that
432 are available to be debugged.
434 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
435 forks of the user program that are
436 available to be debugged.
438 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
439 that are available to be debugged (and
440 kill the forked process).
442 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
443 that are available to be debugged (and
444 allow the process to continue).
448 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
450 * Improved Windows host support
452 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
453 native console support, and remote communications using either
454 network sockets or serial ports.
456 * Improved Modula-2 language support
458 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
459 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
460 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
461 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
462 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
463 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
467 The ARM rdi-share module.
469 The Netware NLM debug server.
471 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
473 * New native configurations
475 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
476 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
480 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
482 * New command line options
484 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
485 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
486 the child (debugged) program exited with.
487 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
488 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
489 specified multiple times and in conjunction
490 with the --command (-x) option.
492 * Deprecated commands removed
494 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
498 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
499 othernames set arm disassembler
500 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
501 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
502 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
505 * New BSD user-level threads support
507 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
508 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
511 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
512 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
513 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
515 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
516 are not yet supported.
518 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
519 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
521 * REMOVED configurations and files
523 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
524 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
525 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
527 * New "set print array-indexes" command
529 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
530 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
533 * VAX floating point support
535 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
537 * User-defined command support
539 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
540 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
541 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
543 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
545 * New command line option
547 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
550 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
552 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
553 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
554 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
555 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
556 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
558 * Internationalization
560 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
561 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
562 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
566 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
567 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
568 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
570 * New native configurations
572 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
576 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
577 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
579 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
581 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
582 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
583 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
586 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
587 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
588 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
600 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
601 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
603 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
605 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
606 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
607 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
617 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
619 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
621 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
622 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
625 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
627 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
628 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
629 IRIX long double values).
633 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
634 command. This problem has been fixed.
636 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
638 * Fix for ``many threads''
640 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
641 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
644 ptrace: No such process.
645 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
647 This problem has been fixed.
649 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
651 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
654 * New ``start'' command.
656 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
658 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
660 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
661 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
662 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
664 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
665 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
666 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
667 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
668 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
669 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
670 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
671 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
672 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
674 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
676 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
677 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
678 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
679 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
680 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
682 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
683 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
684 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
686 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
688 * New native configurations
690 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
691 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
692 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
693 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
694 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
695 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
696 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
698 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
700 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
701 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
702 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
703 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
704 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
705 work, was also included.
707 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
708 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
718 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
719 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
721 * REMOVED configurations and files
723 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
724 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
725 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
726 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
727 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
728 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
729 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
730 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
731 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
733 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
735 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
737 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
739 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
740 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
741 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
742 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
745 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
747 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
748 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
749 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
750 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
751 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
752 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
755 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
757 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
759 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
760 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
761 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
763 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
765 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
766 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
768 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
770 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
771 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
772 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
774 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
776 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
777 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
779 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
781 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
782 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
783 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
785 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
787 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
788 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
789 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
791 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
793 * Removed --with-mmalloc
795 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
796 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
798 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
800 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
801 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
802 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
803 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
805 * Revised SPARC target
807 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
808 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
809 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
810 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
811 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
815 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
816 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
817 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
820 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
822 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
823 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
826 * C++ nested types and namespaces
828 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
829 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
830 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
831 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
832 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
833 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
834 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
835 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
836 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
838 * New native configurations
840 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
841 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
842 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
843 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
844 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
846 * New debugging protocols
848 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
850 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
852 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
853 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
854 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
856 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
858 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
859 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
860 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
863 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
864 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
865 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
866 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
867 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
868 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
869 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
870 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
871 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
873 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
875 * REMOVED configurations and files
877 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
878 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
879 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
880 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
881 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
882 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
883 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
884 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
885 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
886 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
887 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
888 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
889 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
890 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
891 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
892 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
893 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
895 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
899 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
902 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
904 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
905 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
906 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
909 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
910 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
915 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
916 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
917 remote protocol documentation for details.
919 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
921 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
922 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
923 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
926 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
928 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
929 per-thread variables.
931 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
933 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
934 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
936 * Separate debug info.
938 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
939 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
940 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
941 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
942 and optional debug files.
944 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
946 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
947 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
950 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
951 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
955 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
956 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
957 considered "useable".
959 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
961 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
962 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
965 * GDB supports logging output to a file
967 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
968 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
970 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
972 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
973 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
976 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
978 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
979 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
983 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
984 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
985 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
986 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
987 data, for more informative profiling results.
989 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
991 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
992 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
993 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
995 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
998 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
999 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1000 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1001 in a subsequent -var-update.
1003 * New native configurations.
1005 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1007 * Multi-arched targets.
1009 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1010 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1012 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1014 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1015 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1016 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1017 permanently REMOVED.
1019 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1020 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1021 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1022 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1023 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1024 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1025 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1026 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1027 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1028 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1029 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1030 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1032 * REMOVED configurations and files
1035 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1036 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1037 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1038 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1039 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1040 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1042 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1043 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1044 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1045 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1046 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1047 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1049 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1051 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1052 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1053 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1054 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1055 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1057 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1059 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1061 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1062 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1063 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1064 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1065 shared libs like mad''.
1067 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1069 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1070 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1071 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1072 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1074 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1076 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1077 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1080 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1081 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1083 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1084 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1086 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1087 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1088 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1089 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1091 * Multi-arched targets.
1093 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1094 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1096 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1097 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1098 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1102 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1105 * New native configurations
1107 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1108 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1109 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1110 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1112 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1114 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1115 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1116 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1117 permanently REMOVED.
1119 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1120 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1121 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1122 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1123 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1124 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1125 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1126 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1127 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1128 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1130 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1131 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1133 * OBSOLETE languages
1135 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1137 * REMOVED configurations and files
1139 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1140 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1141 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1142 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1143 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1145 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1147 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1149 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1150 commands. The default is 1024.
1152 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1154 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1156 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1158 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1159 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1160 from a file into memory (restore).
1162 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1164 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1165 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1166 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1168 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1176 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1177 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1178 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1180 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1181 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1182 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1184 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1185 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1186 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1188 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1189 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1190 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1192 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1194 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1196 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1197 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1198 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1199 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1200 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1201 (notably embedded) targets.
1203 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1205 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1206 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1207 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1208 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1210 * New command line option
1212 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1214 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1216 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1217 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1218 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1219 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1220 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1221 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1222 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1223 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1224 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1225 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1227 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1229 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1230 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1232 * New native configurations
1234 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1235 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1236 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1237 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1241 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1243 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1245 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1246 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1247 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1248 permanently REMOVED.
1250 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1251 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1252 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1253 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1254 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1256 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1258 * REMOVED configurations and files
1260 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1262 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1263 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1264 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1265 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1266 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1267 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1268 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1269 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1270 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1271 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1272 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1274 * Changes to command line processing
1276 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1277 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1279 * Changes to key bindings
1281 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1283 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1285 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1287 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1290 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1292 Numerous documentation fixes.
1294 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1296 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1298 * New native configurations
1300 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1301 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1302 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1303 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1304 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1305 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1309 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1311 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1313 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1315 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1316 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1317 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1318 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1319 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1321 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1322 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1323 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1324 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1325 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1326 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1327 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1328 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1330 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1331 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1333 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1334 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1335 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1336 permanently REMOVED.
1338 * REMOVED configurations and files
1340 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1341 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1343 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1347 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1349 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1350 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1355 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1357 * The MI enabled by default.
1359 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1360 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1361 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1362 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1363 which is now deprecated.
1365 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1367 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1368 main features are supported:
1370 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1372 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1375 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1377 - a Pascal expression parser.
1379 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1381 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1383 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1385 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1386 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1388 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1390 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1392 * Changes in completion.
1394 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1395 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1396 users expect at the shell prompt.
1398 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1399 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1400 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1401 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1402 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1403 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1404 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1406 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1408 * New platform-independent commands:
1410 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1411 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1412 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1414 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1416 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1417 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1418 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1420 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1422 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1423 multi-threaded programs though.
1425 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1427 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1429 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1430 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1433 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1435 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1436 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1437 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1438 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1439 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1442 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1443 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1444 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1446 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1448 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1449 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1451 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1452 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1455 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1456 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1457 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1458 a given linear address.
1460 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1461 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1462 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1464 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1466 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1468 * Changes in documentation.
1470 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1471 Documentation License.
1473 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1476 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1478 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1481 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1482 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1483 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1485 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1487 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1488 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1489 contents of this file.
1493 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1495 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1497 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1499 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1500 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1501 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1502 greater level of detail.
1504 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1506 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1507 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1508 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1511 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1513 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1514 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1515 machines ``out of the box''.
1517 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1518 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1519 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1520 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1521 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1523 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1524 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1525 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1526 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1527 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1529 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1530 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1533 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1536 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1537 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1538 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1539 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1541 * New native configurations
1543 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1544 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1548 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1549 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1550 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1551 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1553 * OBSOLETE configurations
1555 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1556 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1558 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1561 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1562 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1563 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1564 be permanently REMOVED.
1566 * Gould support removed
1568 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1570 * New features for SVR4
1572 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1573 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1574 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1576 * Many C++ enhancements
1578 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1579 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1581 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1583 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1584 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1585 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1586 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1588 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1589 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1591 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1593 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1594 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1595 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1597 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1598 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1600 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1602 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1603 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1604 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1606 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1608 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1609 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1610 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1612 * ``apropos'' command added.
1614 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1615 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1616 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1620 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1621 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1622 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1623 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1624 enabled by configuring with:
1626 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1628 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1630 * New native configurations
1632 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1633 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1634 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1638 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1639 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1640 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1642 * OBSOLETE configurations
1644 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1646 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1647 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1648 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1649 be permanently REMOVED.
1653 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1654 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1655 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1656 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1657 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1658 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1659 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1664 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1666 * set extension-language
1668 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1669 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1670 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1671 set extension-language .c c++
1672 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1673 and their associated languages.
1675 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1677 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1678 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1679 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1683 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1684 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1686 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1687 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1689 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1690 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1691 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1692 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1693 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1694 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1695 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1696 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1698 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1699 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1700 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1701 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1705 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1706 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1707 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1708 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1709 for xdb and dbx commands.
1713 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1714 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1715 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1717 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1718 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1719 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1721 * Debugging across forks
1723 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1728 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1729 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1730 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1732 * GDB remote protocol additions
1734 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1735 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1736 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1737 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1739 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1740 full 64-bit address. The command
1742 set remoteaddresssize 32
1744 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1745 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1748 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1749 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1751 maint packet heythere
1753 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1754 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1757 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1758 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1759 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1761 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1763 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1764 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1765 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1767 * mask-address variable for Mips
1769 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1770 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1771 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1773 * Higher serial baud rates
1775 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1776 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1777 to achieve all of these rates.)
1781 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1782 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1785 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1787 * New native configurations
1789 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1790 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1791 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1792 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1793 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1794 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1795 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1799 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1800 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1801 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1802 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1803 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1804 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1805 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1806 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1807 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1808 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1809 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1811 * New debugging protocols
1813 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1814 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1815 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1816 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1817 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1818 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1822 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1823 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1828 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1829 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1831 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1833 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1834 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1835 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1837 * Live range splitting
1839 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1840 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1841 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1845 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1846 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1850 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1851 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1852 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1857 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1862 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1863 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1864 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1865 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1866 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1867 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1871 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1872 the symbol at the specified address.
1876 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1877 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1878 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1879 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1880 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1884 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1885 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1886 of most MIPS variants.
1890 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1891 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1892 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1896 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1897 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1898 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1899 the possible architectures.
1901 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1903 * New native configurations
1905 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1906 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1907 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1908 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1909 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1910 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1914 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1915 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1916 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1917 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1918 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1920 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1924 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1925 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1926 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1927 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1928 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1932 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1934 * Windows 95/NT native
1936 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1937 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1938 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1939 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1940 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1942 * dont-repeat command
1944 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1945 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1946 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1947 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1949 * Send break instead of ^C
1951 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1952 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1953 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1955 * Remote protocol timeout
1957 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1958 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1959 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1961 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1963 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1964 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1965 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1966 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1967 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1969 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1970 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1971 automatically on hpux10.
1973 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1975 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1977 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1979 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1980 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1981 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1982 every character. The default value is 1050.
1984 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1986 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1987 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1988 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1989 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1990 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1991 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1993 * Speedups for remote debugging
1995 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1996 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1997 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1999 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2001 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2002 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2004 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2006 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2008 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2009 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2011 * Remote targets use caching
2013 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2014 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2015 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2016 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2017 off' turns the the data cache off.
2019 * Remote targets may have threads
2021 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2022 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2023 gdb/remote.c for details.
2027 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2028 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2029 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2030 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2031 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2032 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2033 sequence is something like
2035 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2037 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2041 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2042 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2043 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2044 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2045 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2046 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2047 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2048 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2052 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2053 but does simplify configuration and building.
2057 GDB now supports hpux10.
2059 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2061 * New native configurations
2063 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2064 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2065 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2066 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2070 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2071 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2072 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2073 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2076 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2078 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2079 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2080 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2081 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2082 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2084 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2086 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2087 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2090 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2092 To execute the command use:
2095 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2096 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2097 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2099 * New `if' and `while' commands
2101 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2102 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2103 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2104 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2105 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2106 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2107 if the expression is zero.
2109 * Fortran source language mode
2111 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2112 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2113 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2114 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2117 * Better HPUX support
2119 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2120 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2121 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2122 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2123 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2129 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2130 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2136 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2137 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2140 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2141 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2143 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2145 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2146 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2147 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2148 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2149 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2150 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2152 * New DOS host serial code
2154 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2155 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2158 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2160 * New "complete" command
2162 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2163 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2165 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2167 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2168 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2170 * Breakpoint hit counts
2172 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2173 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2174 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2175 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2176 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2179 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2181 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2182 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2183 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2185 * Shared library breakpoints
2187 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2188 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2190 * Hardware watchpoints
2192 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2193 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2195 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2199 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2200 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2202 * Improved Irix 5 support
2204 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2206 * Improved HPPA support
2208 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2210 * New native configurations
2212 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2213 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2214 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2215 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2219 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2220 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2223 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2225 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2226 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2230 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2231 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2233 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2235 * Irix 5 is now supported
2239 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2240 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2241 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2242 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2243 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2246 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2248 * User visible changes:
2252 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2253 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2254 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2255 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2256 debugging info for the mips target).
2258 * DEC Alpha native support
2260 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2261 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2262 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2263 Alpha-specific notes.
2265 * Preliminary thread implementation
2267 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2269 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2271 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2272 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2275 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2277 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2278 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2279 call methods, ...etc.
2281 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2283 * User visible changes:
2285 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2286 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2287 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2288 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2290 Filename completion now works.
2292 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2293 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2294 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2296 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2297 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2298 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2299 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2300 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2304 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2305 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2308 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2312 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2313 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2314 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2318 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2319 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2320 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2321 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2322 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2326 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2327 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2328 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2330 * New targets supported
2332 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2333 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2334 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2335 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2336 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2338 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2339 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2340 GO32 memory extender.
2342 * New remote protocols
2344 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2346 * New source languages supported
2348 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2349 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2350 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2353 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2355 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2357 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2358 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2359 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2360 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2361 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2362 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2364 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2366 * Faster and better demangling
2368 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2369 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2370 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2371 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2372 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2373 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2376 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2377 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2378 compiler does not actually implement.
2380 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2382 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2383 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2384 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2385 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2386 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2387 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2390 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2391 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2393 * Improved configure script
2395 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2396 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2397 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2398 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2400 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2401 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2402 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2403 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2404 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2405 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2407 * Documentation improvements
2409 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2410 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2411 before submitting changes.
2413 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2414 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2415 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2416 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2417 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2419 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2420 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2421 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2422 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2423 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2424 around this problem.
2428 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2429 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2430 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2433 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2434 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2436 * New native hosts supported
2438 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2439 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2441 * New targets supported
2443 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2445 * New file formats supported
2447 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2448 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2452 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2454 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2455 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2457 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2458 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2459 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2461 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2462 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2464 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2465 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2466 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2469 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2470 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2471 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2472 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2473 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2475 * Internal improvements
2477 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2478 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2480 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2481 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2482 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2483 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2484 shared code that handles any of them.
2486 * New command line options
2488 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2492 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2493 General Public License.
2495 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2497 * Host/native/target split
2499 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2500 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2501 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2502 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2503 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2505 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2506 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2507 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2508 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2509 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2510 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2511 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2513 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2514 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2515 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2517 * New hosts supported
2519 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2520 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2521 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2523 * New targets supported
2525 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2526 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2528 * New native hosts supported
2530 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2531 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2532 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2534 * New file formats supported
2536 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2537 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2538 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2542 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2543 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2544 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2546 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2548 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2549 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2550 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2551 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2555 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2556 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2557 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2559 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2563 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2564 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2567 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2568 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2570 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2571 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2572 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2573 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2574 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2575 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2577 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2578 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2579 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2580 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2584 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2585 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2586 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2587 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2588 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2590 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2591 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2592 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2593 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2597 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2598 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2599 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2600 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2601 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2602 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2603 each instruction being stepped through.
2605 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2606 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2608 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2609 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2610 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2611 processor with a serial port.
2615 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2616 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2617 supported, and what files each one uses.
2621 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2622 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2623 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2624 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2626 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2627 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2628 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2629 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2633 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2634 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2635 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2636 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2637 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2638 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2640 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2643 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2645 * Better support for C++ function names
2647 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2648 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2649 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2650 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2651 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2653 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2654 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2655 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2656 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2657 for the list of formats.
2659 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2661 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2662 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2663 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2664 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2665 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2666 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2669 * New 'maintenance' command
2671 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2672 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2673 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2675 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2676 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2677 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2678 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2679 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2680 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2682 The following commands are new:
2684 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2685 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2686 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2688 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2690 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2691 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2692 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2693 read after argv processing.
2695 * New hosts supported
2697 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2699 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2701 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2702 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2703 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2704 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2705 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2708 * New targets supported
2710 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2712 * More smarts about finding #include files
2714 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2715 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2716 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2717 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2718 the one that contains your sources.
2720 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2721 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2722 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2724 * Interesting infernals change
2726 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2727 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2728 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2729 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2731 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2733 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2734 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2735 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2737 See the ChangeLog for details.
2739 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2741 * New machines supported (host and target)
2743 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2745 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2747 * New malloc package
2749 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2750 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2751 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2752 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2753 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2754 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2758 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2759 'help info proc' for details.
2761 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2763 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2764 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2767 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2769 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2770 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2771 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2772 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2773 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2774 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2776 * Cross byte order fixes
2778 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2779 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2781 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2783 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2784 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2785 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2786 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2787 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2788 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2789 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2790 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2791 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2792 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2794 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2795 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2796 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2797 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2799 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2800 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2801 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2804 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2806 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2807 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2808 shared across multiple host platforms.
2810 * longjmp() handling
2812 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2813 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2814 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2815 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2819 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2820 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2825 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2826 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2827 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2829 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2831 * New machines supported (host and target)
2833 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2835 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2836 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2838 * New machines supported (target)
2840 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2844 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2845 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2846 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2848 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2849 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2850 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2851 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2852 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2855 * New features for SVR4
2857 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2858 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2859 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2861 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2862 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2863 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2865 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2866 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2868 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2870 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2871 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2872 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2873 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2874 same code linked statically.
2878 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2879 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2880 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2881 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2882 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2883 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2887 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2888 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2889 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2892 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2894 * New machines supported (host and target)
2896 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2897 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2898 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2900 * Almost SCO Unix support
2902 We had hoped to support:
2903 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2904 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2905 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2906 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2908 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2910 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2911 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2912 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2913 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2918 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2919 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2920 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2924 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2925 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2926 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2928 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2930 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2931 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2932 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2934 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2935 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2936 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2937 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2940 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2941 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2942 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2943 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2946 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2947 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2950 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2951 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2952 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2955 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2957 * Improved configuration
2959 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2960 Porting BFD is simpler.
2964 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2965 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2966 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2967 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2971 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2973 * New host supported (not target)
2975 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2978 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2980 * Multiple source language support
2982 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2983 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2984 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2985 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2986 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2987 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2991 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2992 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2993 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2994 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2996 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2997 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2998 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3000 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3001 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3005 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3006 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3007 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3008 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3011 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3013 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3014 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3015 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3016 examining core files.
3020 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3023 * New machines supported (host and target)
3025 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3026 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3027 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3029 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3031 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3033 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3035 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3036 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3037 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3039 * New remote interfaces
3045 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3049 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3051 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3052 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3053 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3054 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3055 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3056 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3057 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3058 stub on the target system.
3060 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3062 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3063 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3064 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3066 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3067 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3070 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3072 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3073 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3075 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3076 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3077 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3079 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3080 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3081 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3082 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3084 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3085 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3086 it is already running. Default is ON.
3088 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3089 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3090 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3091 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3094 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3095 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3096 or the value of the environment variable
3099 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3100 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3103 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3104 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3105 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3107 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3108 history expansion will be performed on
3109 command line input. The default is OFF.
3111 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3112 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3113 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3115 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3116 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3117 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3120 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3121 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3122 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3125 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3126 ``set width'' instead.
3128 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3129 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3130 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3131 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3133 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3136 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3139 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3142 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3145 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3147 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3148 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3149 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3153 * Support for Shared Libraries
3155 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3156 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3157 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3158 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3159 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3160 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3161 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3162 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3164 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3165 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3166 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3168 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3173 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3174 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3175 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3176 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3177 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3178 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3180 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3182 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3184 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3185 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3186 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3189 * C++ multiple inheritance
3191 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3194 * C++ exception handling
3196 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3197 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3198 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3201 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3202 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3203 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3205 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3206 current stack frame.
3209 * Minor command changes
3211 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3212 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3213 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3215 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3216 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3217 frames without printing.
3219 * New directory command
3221 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3222 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3223 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3224 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3225 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3227 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3229 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3232 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3233 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3234 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3235 where the program that you are debugging will run.