1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
6 * Improved i386 prologue analyzer
8 The i386 prologue analyzer was improved to deal better with the
9 prologues generated by GCC 3.3 and later. As a result GDB should
10 produce better backtraces for code without DWARF Call Frame Info.
12 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
14 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
15 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
18 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
20 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
21 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
22 IRIX long double values).
26 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
27 command. This problem has been fixed.
29 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
31 * Fix for ``many threads''
33 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
34 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
37 ptrace: No such process.
38 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
40 This problem has been fixed.
42 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
44 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
47 * New ``start'' command.
49 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
51 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
53 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
54 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
55 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
57 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
58 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
59 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
60 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
61 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
62 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
63 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
64 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
65 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
67 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
69 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
70 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
71 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
72 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
73 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
75 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
76 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
77 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
79 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
81 * New native configurations
83 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
84 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
85 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
86 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
87 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
88 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
89 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
91 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
93 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
94 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
95 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
96 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
97 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
98 work, was also included.
100 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
101 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
111 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
112 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
114 * REMOVED configurations and files
116 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
117 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
118 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
119 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
120 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
121 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
122 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
123 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
124 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
126 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
128 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
130 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
132 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
133 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
134 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
135 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
138 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
140 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
141 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
142 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
143 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
144 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
145 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
148 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
150 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
152 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
153 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
154 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
156 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
158 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
159 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
161 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
163 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
164 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
165 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
167 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
169 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
170 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
172 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
174 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
175 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
176 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
178 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
180 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
181 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
182 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
184 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
186 * Removed --with-mmalloc
188 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
189 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
191 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
193 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
194 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
195 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
196 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
198 * Revised SPARC target
200 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
201 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
202 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
203 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
204 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
208 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
209 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
210 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
213 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
215 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
216 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
219 * C++ nested types and namespaces
221 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
222 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
223 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
224 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
225 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
226 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
227 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
228 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
229 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
231 * New native configurations
233 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
234 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
235 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
236 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
237 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
239 * New debugging protocols
241 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
243 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
245 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
246 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
247 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
249 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
251 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
252 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
253 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
256 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
257 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
258 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
259 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
260 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
261 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
262 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
263 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
264 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
266 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
268 * REMOVED configurations and files
270 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
271 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
272 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
273 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
274 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
275 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
276 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
277 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
278 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
279 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
280 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
281 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
282 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
283 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
284 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
285 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
286 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
288 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
292 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
295 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
297 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
298 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
299 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
302 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
303 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
308 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
309 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
310 remote protocol documentation for details.
312 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
314 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
315 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
316 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
319 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
321 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
322 per-thread variables.
324 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
326 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
327 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
329 * Separate debug info.
331 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
332 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
333 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
334 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
335 and optional debug files.
337 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
339 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
340 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
343 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
344 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
348 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
349 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
350 considered "useable".
352 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
354 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
355 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
358 * GDB supports logging output to a file
360 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
361 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
363 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
365 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
366 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
369 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
371 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
372 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
376 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
377 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
378 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
379 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
380 data, for more informative profiling results.
382 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
384 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
385 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
386 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
388 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
391 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
392 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
393 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
394 in a subsequent -var-update.
396 * New native configurations.
398 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
400 * Multi-arched targets.
402 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
403 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
405 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
407 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
408 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
409 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
412 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
413 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
414 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
415 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
416 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
417 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
418 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
419 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
420 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
421 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
422 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
423 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
425 * REMOVED configurations and files
428 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
429 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
430 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
431 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
432 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
433 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
435 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
436 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
437 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
438 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
439 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
440 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
442 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
444 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
445 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
446 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
447 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
448 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
450 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
452 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
454 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
455 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
456 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
457 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
458 shared libs like mad''.
460 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
462 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
463 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
464 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
465 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
467 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
469 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
470 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
473 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
474 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
476 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
477 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
479 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
480 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
481 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
482 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
484 * Multi-arched targets.
486 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
487 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
489 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
490 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
491 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
495 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
498 * New native configurations
500 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
501 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
502 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
503 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
505 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
507 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
508 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
509 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
512 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
513 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
514 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
515 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
516 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
517 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
518 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
519 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
520 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
521 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
523 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
524 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
528 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
530 * REMOVED configurations and files
532 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
533 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
534 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
535 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
536 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
538 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
540 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
542 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
543 commands. The default is 1024.
545 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
547 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
549 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
551 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
552 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
553 from a file into memory (restore).
555 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
557 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
558 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
559 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
561 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
569 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
570 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
571 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
573 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
574 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
575 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
577 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
578 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
579 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
581 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
582 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
583 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
585 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
587 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
589 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
590 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
591 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
592 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
593 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
594 (notably embedded) targets.
596 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
598 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
599 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
600 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
601 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
603 * New command line option
605 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
607 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
609 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
610 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
611 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
612 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
613 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
614 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
615 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
616 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
617 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
618 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
620 * Changes in ARM configurations.
622 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
623 configuration is fully multi-arch.
625 * New native configurations
627 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
628 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
629 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
630 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
634 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
636 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
638 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
639 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
640 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
643 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
644 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
645 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
646 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
647 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
649 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
651 * REMOVED configurations and files
653 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
655 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
656 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
657 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
658 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
659 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
660 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
661 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
662 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
663 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
664 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
665 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
667 * Changes to command line processing
669 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
670 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
672 * Changes to key bindings
674 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
676 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
678 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
680 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
683 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
685 Numerous documentation fixes.
687 Numerous testsuite fixes.
689 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
691 * New native configurations
693 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
694 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
695 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
696 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
698 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
702 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
704 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
706 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
708 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
709 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
710 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
711 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
712 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
714 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
715 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
716 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
717 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
718 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
719 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
720 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
721 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
723 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
724 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
726 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
727 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
728 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
731 * REMOVED configurations and files
733 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
734 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
736 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
740 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
742 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
743 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
748 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
750 * The MI enabled by default.
752 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
753 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
754 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
755 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
756 which is now deprecated.
758 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
760 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
761 main features are supported:
763 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
765 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
768 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
770 - a Pascal expression parser.
772 However, some important features are not yet supported.
774 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
776 - there are some problems with boolean types;
778 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
779 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
781 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
783 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
785 * Changes in completion.
787 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
788 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
789 users expect at the shell prompt.
791 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
792 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
793 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
794 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
795 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
796 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
797 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
799 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
801 * New platform-independent commands:
803 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
804 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
805 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
807 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
809 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
810 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
811 many threads as your system allows you to have.
813 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
815 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
816 multi-threaded programs though.
818 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
820 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
822 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
823 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
826 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
828 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
829 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
830 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
831 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
832 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
835 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
836 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
837 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
839 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
841 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
842 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
844 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
845 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
848 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
849 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
850 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
851 a given linear address.
853 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
854 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
855 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
857 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
859 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
861 * Changes in documentation.
863 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
864 Documentation License.
866 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
869 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
871 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
874 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
875 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
876 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
878 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
880 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
881 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
882 contents of this file.
886 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
888 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
890 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
892 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
893 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
894 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
895 greater level of detail.
897 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
899 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
900 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
901 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
904 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
906 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
907 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
908 machines ``out of the box''.
910 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
911 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
912 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
913 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
914 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
916 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
917 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
918 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
919 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
920 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
922 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
923 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
926 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
929 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
930 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
931 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
932 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
934 * New native configurations
936 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
937 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
941 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
942 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
943 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
944 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
946 * OBSOLETE configurations
948 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
949 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
951 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
954 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
955 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
956 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
957 be permanently REMOVED.
959 * Gould support removed
961 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
963 * New features for SVR4
965 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
966 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
967 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
969 * Many C++ enhancements
971 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
972 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
974 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
976 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
977 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
978 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
979 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
981 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
982 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
984 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
986 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
987 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
988 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
990 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
991 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
993 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
995 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
996 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
997 include ``set remote P-packet''.
999 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1001 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1002 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1003 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1005 * ``apropos'' command added.
1007 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1008 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1009 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1013 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1014 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1015 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1016 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1017 enabled by configuring with:
1019 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1021 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1023 * New native configurations
1025 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1026 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1027 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1031 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1032 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1033 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1035 * OBSOLETE configurations
1037 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1039 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1040 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1041 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1042 be permanently REMOVED.
1046 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1047 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1048 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1049 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1050 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1051 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1052 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1057 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1059 * set extension-language
1061 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1062 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1063 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1064 set extension-language .c c++
1065 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1066 and their associated languages.
1068 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1070 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1071 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1072 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1076 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1077 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1079 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1080 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1082 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1083 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1084 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1085 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1086 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1087 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1088 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1089 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1091 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1092 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1093 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1094 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1098 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1099 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1100 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1101 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1102 for xdb and dbx commands.
1106 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1107 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1108 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1110 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1111 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1112 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1114 * Debugging across forks
1116 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1121 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1122 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1123 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1125 * GDB remote protocol additions
1127 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1128 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1129 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1130 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1132 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1133 full 64-bit address. The command
1135 set remoteaddresssize 32
1137 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1138 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1141 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1142 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1144 maint packet heythere
1146 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1147 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1150 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1151 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1152 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1154 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1156 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1157 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1158 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1160 * mask-address variable for Mips
1162 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1163 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1164 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1166 * Higher serial baud rates
1168 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1169 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1170 to achieve all of these rates.)
1174 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1175 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1178 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1180 * New native configurations
1182 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1183 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1184 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1185 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1186 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1187 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1188 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1192 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1193 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1194 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1195 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1196 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1197 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1198 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1199 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1200 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1201 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1202 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1204 * New debugging protocols
1206 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1207 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1208 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1209 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1210 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1211 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1215 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1216 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1221 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1222 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1224 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1226 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1227 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1228 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1230 * Live range splitting
1232 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1233 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1234 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1238 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1239 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1243 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1244 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1245 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1250 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1255 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1256 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1257 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1258 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1259 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1260 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1264 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1265 the symbol at the specified address.
1269 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1270 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1271 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1272 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1273 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1277 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1278 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1279 of most MIPS variants.
1283 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1284 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1285 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1289 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1290 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1291 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1292 the possible architectures.
1294 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1296 * New native configurations
1298 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1299 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1300 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1301 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1302 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1303 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1307 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1308 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1309 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1310 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1311 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1313 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1317 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1318 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1319 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1320 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1321 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1325 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1327 * Windows 95/NT native
1329 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1330 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1331 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1332 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1333 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1335 * dont-repeat command
1337 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1338 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1339 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1340 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1342 * Send break instead of ^C
1344 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1345 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1346 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1348 * Remote protocol timeout
1350 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1351 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1352 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1354 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1356 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1357 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1358 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1359 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1360 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1362 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1363 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1364 automatically on hpux10.
1366 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1368 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1370 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1372 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1373 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1374 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1375 every character. The default value is 1050.
1377 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1379 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1380 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1381 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1382 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1383 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1384 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1386 * Speedups for remote debugging
1388 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1389 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1390 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1392 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1394 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1395 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1397 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1399 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1401 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1402 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1404 * Remote targets use caching
1406 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1407 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1408 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1409 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1410 off' turns the the data cache off.
1412 * Remote targets may have threads
1414 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1415 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1416 gdb/remote.c for details.
1420 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1421 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1422 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1423 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1424 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1425 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1426 sequence is something like
1428 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1430 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1434 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1435 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1436 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1437 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1438 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1439 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1440 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1441 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1445 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1446 but does simplify configuration and building.
1450 GDB now supports hpux10.
1452 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1454 * New native configurations
1456 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1457 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1458 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1459 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1463 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1464 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1465 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1466 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1469 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1471 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1472 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1473 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1474 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1475 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1477 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1479 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1480 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1483 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1485 To execute the command use:
1488 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1489 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1490 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1492 * New `if' and `while' commands
1494 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1495 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1496 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1497 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1498 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1499 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1500 if the expression is zero.
1502 * Fortran source language mode
1504 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1505 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1506 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1507 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1510 * Better HPUX support
1512 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1513 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1514 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1515 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1516 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1522 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1523 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1529 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1530 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1533 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1534 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1536 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1538 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1539 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1540 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1541 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1542 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1543 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1545 * New DOS host serial code
1547 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1548 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1551 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1553 * New "complete" command
1555 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1556 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1558 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1560 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1561 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1563 * Breakpoint hit counts
1565 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1566 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1567 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1568 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1569 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1572 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1574 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1575 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1576 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1578 * Shared library breakpoints
1580 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1581 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1583 * Hardware watchpoints
1585 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1586 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1588 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1592 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1593 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1595 * Improved Irix 5 support
1597 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1599 * Improved HPPA support
1601 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1603 * New native configurations
1605 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1606 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1607 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1608 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1612 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1613 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1616 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1618 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1619 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1623 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1624 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1626 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1628 * Irix 5 is now supported
1632 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1633 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1634 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1635 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1636 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1639 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1641 * User visible changes:
1645 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1646 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1647 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1648 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1649 debugging info for the mips target).
1651 * DEC Alpha native support
1653 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1654 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1655 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1656 Alpha-specific notes.
1658 * Preliminary thread implementation
1660 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1662 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1664 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1665 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1668 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1670 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1671 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1672 call methods, ...etc.
1674 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1676 * User visible changes:
1678 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1679 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1680 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1681 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1683 Filename completion now works.
1685 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1686 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1687 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1689 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1690 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1691 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1692 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1693 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1697 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1698 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1701 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1705 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1706 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1707 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1711 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1712 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1713 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1714 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1715 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1719 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1720 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1721 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1723 * New targets supported
1725 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1726 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1727 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1728 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1729 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1731 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1732 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1733 GO32 memory extender.
1735 * New remote protocols
1737 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1739 * New source languages supported
1741 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1742 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1743 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1746 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1748 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1750 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1751 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1752 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1753 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1754 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1755 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1757 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1759 * Faster and better demangling
1761 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1762 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1763 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1764 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1765 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1766 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1769 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1770 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1771 compiler does not actually implement.
1773 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1775 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1776 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1777 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1778 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1779 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1780 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1783 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1784 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1786 * Improved configure script
1788 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1789 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1790 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1791 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1793 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1794 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1795 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1796 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1797 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1798 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1800 * Documentation improvements
1802 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1803 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1804 before submitting changes.
1806 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1807 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1808 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1809 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1810 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1812 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1813 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1814 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1815 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1816 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1817 around this problem.
1821 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1822 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1823 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1826 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1827 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1829 * New native hosts supported
1831 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1832 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1834 * New targets supported
1836 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1838 * New file formats supported
1840 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1841 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1845 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1847 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1848 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1850 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1851 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1852 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1854 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1855 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1857 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1858 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1859 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1862 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1863 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1864 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1865 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1866 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1868 * Internal improvements
1870 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1871 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1873 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1874 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1875 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1876 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1877 shared code that handles any of them.
1879 * New command line options
1881 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1885 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1886 General Public License.
1888 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1890 * Host/native/target split
1892 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1893 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1894 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1895 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1896 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1898 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1899 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1900 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1901 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1902 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1903 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1904 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1906 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1907 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1908 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1910 * New hosts supported
1912 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1913 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1914 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1916 * New targets supported
1918 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1919 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1921 * New native hosts supported
1923 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1924 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1925 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1927 * New file formats supported
1929 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1930 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1931 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1935 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1936 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1937 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1939 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1941 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1942 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1943 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1944 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1948 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1949 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1950 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1952 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1956 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1957 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1960 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1961 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1963 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1964 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1965 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1966 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1967 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1968 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1970 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1971 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1972 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1973 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1977 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1978 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1979 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1980 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1981 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1983 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1984 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1985 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1986 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1990 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1991 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1992 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1993 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1994 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1995 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1996 each instruction being stepped through.
1998 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1999 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2001 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2002 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2003 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2004 processor with a serial port.
2008 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2009 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2010 supported, and what files each one uses.
2014 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2015 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2016 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2017 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2019 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2020 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2021 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2022 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2026 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2027 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2028 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2029 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2030 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2031 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2033 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2036 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2038 * Better support for C++ function names
2040 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2041 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2042 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2043 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2044 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2046 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2047 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2048 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2049 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2050 for the list of formats.
2052 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2054 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2055 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2056 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2057 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2058 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2059 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2062 * New 'maintenance' command
2064 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2065 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2066 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2068 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2069 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2070 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2071 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2072 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2073 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2075 The following commands are new:
2077 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2078 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2079 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2081 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2083 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2084 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2085 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2086 read after argv processing.
2088 * New hosts supported
2090 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2092 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2094 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2095 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2096 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2097 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2098 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2101 * New targets supported
2103 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2105 * More smarts about finding #include files
2107 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2108 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2109 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2110 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2111 the one that contains your sources.
2113 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2114 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2115 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2117 * Interesting infernals change
2119 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2120 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2121 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2122 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2124 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2126 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2127 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2128 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2130 See the ChangeLog for details.
2132 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2134 * New machines supported (host and target)
2136 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2138 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2140 * New malloc package
2142 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2143 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2144 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2145 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2146 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2147 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2151 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2152 'help info proc' for details.
2154 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2156 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2157 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2160 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2162 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2163 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2164 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2165 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2166 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2167 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2169 * Cross byte order fixes
2171 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2172 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2174 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2176 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2177 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2178 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2179 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2180 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2181 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2182 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2183 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2184 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2185 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2187 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2188 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2189 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2190 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2192 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2193 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2194 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2197 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2199 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2200 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2201 shared across multiple host platforms.
2203 * longjmp() handling
2205 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2206 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2207 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2208 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2212 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2213 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2218 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2219 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2220 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2222 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2224 * New machines supported (host and target)
2226 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2228 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2229 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2231 * New machines supported (target)
2233 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2237 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2238 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2239 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2241 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2242 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2243 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2244 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2245 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2248 * New features for SVR4
2250 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2251 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2252 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2254 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2255 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2256 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2258 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2259 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2261 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2263 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2264 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2265 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2266 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2267 same code linked statically.
2271 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2272 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2273 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2274 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2275 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2276 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2280 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2281 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2282 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2285 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2287 * New machines supported (host and target)
2289 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2290 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2291 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2293 * Almost SCO Unix support
2295 We had hoped to support:
2296 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2297 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2298 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2299 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2301 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2303 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2304 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2305 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2306 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2311 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2312 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2313 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2317 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2318 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2319 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2321 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2323 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2324 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2325 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2327 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2328 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2329 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2330 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2333 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2334 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2335 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2336 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2339 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2340 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2343 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2344 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2345 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2348 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2350 * Improved configuration
2352 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2353 Porting BFD is simpler.
2357 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2358 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2359 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2360 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2364 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2366 * New host supported (not target)
2368 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2371 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2373 * Multiple source language support
2375 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2376 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2377 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2378 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2379 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2380 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2384 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2385 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2386 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2387 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2389 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2390 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2391 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2393 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2394 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2398 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2399 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2400 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2401 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2404 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2406 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2407 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2408 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2409 examining core files.
2413 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2416 * New machines supported (host and target)
2418 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2419 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2420 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2422 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2424 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2426 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2428 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2429 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2430 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2432 * New remote interfaces
2438 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2442 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2444 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2445 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2446 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2447 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2448 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2449 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2450 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2451 stub on the target system.
2453 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2455 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2456 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2457 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2459 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2460 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2463 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2465 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2466 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2468 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2469 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2470 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2472 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2473 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2474 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2475 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2477 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2478 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2479 it is already running. Default is ON.
2481 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2482 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2483 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2484 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2487 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2488 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2489 or the value of the environment variable
2492 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2493 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2496 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2497 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2498 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2500 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2501 history expansion will be performed on
2502 command line input. The default is OFF.
2504 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2505 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2506 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2508 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2509 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2510 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2513 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2514 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2515 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2518 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2519 ``set width'' instead.
2521 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2522 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2523 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2524 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2526 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2529 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2532 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2535 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2538 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2540 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2541 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2542 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2546 * Support for Shared Libraries
2548 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2549 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2550 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2551 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2552 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2553 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2554 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2555 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2557 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2558 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2559 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2561 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2566 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2567 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2568 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2569 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2570 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2571 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2573 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2575 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2577 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2578 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2579 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2582 * C++ multiple inheritance
2584 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2587 * C++ exception handling
2589 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2590 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2591 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2594 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2595 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2596 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2598 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2599 current stack frame.
2602 * Minor command changes
2604 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2605 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2606 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2608 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2609 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2610 frames without printing.
2612 * New directory command
2614 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2615 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2616 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2617 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2618 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2620 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2622 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2625 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2626 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2627 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2628 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / dragonfly.git / blob