| blob | 9ef498139ee11343c03c0aeaa05fe4782ea35940 |
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
6 * New targets
8 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
10 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
12 * New commands
14 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
15 only if it doesn't already have a value.
17 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
19 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
21 restart <n> Return the program state to a
22 previously saved state.
24 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
26 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
28 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
29 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
31 info forks List forks of the user program that
32 are available to be debugged.
34 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
35 forks of the user program that are
36 available to be debugged.
38 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
39 that are available to be debugged (and
40 kill the forked process).
42 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
43 that are available to be debugged (and
44 allow the process to continue).
46 * New architecture
48 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
50 * Improved Windows host support
52 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
53 native console support, and remote communications using either
54 network sockets or serial ports.
56 * Improved Modula-2 language support
58 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
59 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
60 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
61 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
62 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
63 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
65 * REMOVED features
67 The ARM rdi-share module.
69 The Netware NLM debug server.
71 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
73 * New native configurations
75 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
76 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
78 * New targets
80 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
82 * New command line options
84 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
85 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
86 the child (debugged) program exited with.
87 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
88 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
89 specified multiple times and in conjunction
90 with the --command (-x) option.
92 * Deprecated commands removed
94 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
95 removed:
97 Command Replacement
98 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
99 othernames set arm disassembler
100 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
101 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
102 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
103 regs info registers
105 * New BSD user-level threads support
107 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
108 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
109 configurations are:
111 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
112 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
113 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
115 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
116 are not yet supported.
118 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
119 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
121 * REMOVED configurations and files
123 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
124 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
125 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
127 * New "set print array-indexes" command
129 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
130 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
131 behavior.
133 * VAX floating point support
135 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
137 * User-defined command support
139 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
140 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
141 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
143 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
145 * New command line option
147 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
148 debugging.
150 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
152 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
153 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
154 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
155 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
156 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
158 * Internationalization
160 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
161 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
162 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
164 * Ada
166 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
167 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
168 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
170 * New native configurations
172 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
174 * Remote 'p' packet
176 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
177 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
179 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
181 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
182 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
183 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
184 i386 application).
186 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
187 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
188 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
189 configurations:
191 hppa-*-hpux
192 ia64-*-aix
193 mips-*-irix*
194 *-*-lynx
195 mips-*-linux-gnu
196 sds protocol
197 xdr protocol
198 powerpc bdm protocol
200 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
201 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
203 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
205 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
206 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
207 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
208 permanently REMOVED.
210 h8300-*-*
211 mcore-*-*
212 mn10300-*-*
213 ns32k-*-*
214 sh64-*-*
215 v850-*-*
217 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
219 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
221 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
222 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
223 been fixed.
225 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
227 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
228 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
229 IRIX long double values).
231 * VAX and "next"
233 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
234 command. This problem has been fixed.
236 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
238 * Fix for ``many threads''
240 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
241 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
242 error message:
244 ptrace: No such process.
245 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
247 This problem has been fixed.
249 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
251 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
252 GDB to dump core).
254 * New ``start'' command.
256 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
258 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
260 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
261 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
262 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
264 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
265 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
266 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
267 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
268 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
269 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
270 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
271 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
272 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
274 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
276 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
277 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
278 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
279 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
280 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
282 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
283 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
284 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
286 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
288 * New native configurations
290 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
291 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
292 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
293 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
294 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
295 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
296 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
298 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
300 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
301 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
302 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
303 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
304 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
305 work, was also included.
307 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
308 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
310 h8300-*-*
311 mcore-*-*
312 mn10300-*-*
313 ns32k-*-*
314 sh64-*-*
315 v850-*-*
316 xstormy16-*-*
318 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
319 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
321 * REMOVED configurations and files
323 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
324 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
325 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
326 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
327 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
328 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
329 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
330 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
331 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
332 sonymips mips-sony-*
333 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
335 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
337 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
339 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
340 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
341 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
342 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
343 with GDB".
345 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
347 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
348 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
349 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
350 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
351 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
352 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
353 are created.
355 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
357 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
359 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
360 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
361 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
363 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
365 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
366 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
368 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
370 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
371 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
372 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
374 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
376 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
377 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
379 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
381 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
382 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
383 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
385 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
387 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
388 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
389 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
391 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
393 * Removed --with-mmalloc
395 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
396 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
398 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
400 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
401 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
402 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
403 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
405 * Revised SPARC target
407 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
408 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
409 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
410 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
411 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
413 * New C++ demangler
415 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
416 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
417 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
418 programs.
420 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
422 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
423 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
424 encountered these.
426 * C++ nested types and namespaces
428 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
429 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
430 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
431 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
432 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
433 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
434 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
435 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
436 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
438 * New native configurations
440 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
441 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
442 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
443 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
444 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
446 * New debugging protocols
448 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
450 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
452 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
453 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
454 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
456 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
458 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
459 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
460 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
461 permanently REMOVED.
463 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
464 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
465 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
466 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
467 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
468 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
469 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
470 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
471 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
472 sonymips mips-sony-*
473 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
475 * REMOVED configurations and files
477 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
478 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
479 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
480 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
481 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
482 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
483 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
484 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
485 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
486 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
487 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
488 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
489 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
490 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
491 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
492 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
493 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
495 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
497 * Objective-C
499 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
500 integrated into GDB.
502 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
504 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
505 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
506 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
507 backtraces.
509 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
510 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
511 DWARF 2 CFI support.
513 * Hosted file I/O.
515 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
516 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
517 remote protocol documentation for details.
519 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
521 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
522 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
523 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
524 ppc32 on ppc64).
526 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
528 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
529 per-thread variables.
531 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
533 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
534 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
536 * Separate debug info.
538 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
539 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
540 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
541 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
542 and optional debug files.
544 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
546 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
547 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
548 debugger.
550 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
551 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
553 * Java
555 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
556 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
557 considered "useable".
559 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
561 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
562 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
563 kernel.
565 * GDB supports logging output to a file
567 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
568 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
570 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
572 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
573 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
574 command.
576 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
578 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
579 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
581 * Profiling support
583 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
584 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
585 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
586 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
587 data, for more informative profiling results.
589 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
591 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
592 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
593 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
595 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
596 removed.
598 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
599 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
600 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
601 in a subsequent -var-update.
603 * New native configurations.
605 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
607 * Multi-arched targets.
609 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
610 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
612 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
614 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
615 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
616 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
617 permanently REMOVED.
619 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
620 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
621 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
622 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
623 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
624 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
625 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
626 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
627 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
628 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
629 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
630 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
632 * REMOVED configurations and files
634 V850EA ISA
635 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
636 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
637 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
638 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
639 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
640 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
641 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
642 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
643 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
644 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
645 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
646 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
647 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
649 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
651 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
652 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
653 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
654 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
655 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
657 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
659 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
661 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
662 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
663 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
664 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
665 shared libs like mad''.
667 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
669 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
670 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
671 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
672 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
674 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
676 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
677 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
678 they expand.
680 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
681 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
683 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
684 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
686 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
687 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
688 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
689 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
691 * Multi-arched targets.
693 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
694 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
695 NEC V850 v850-*-*
696 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
697 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
698 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
700 * New targets.
702 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
705 * New native configurations
707 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
708 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
709 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
710 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
712 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
714 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
715 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
716 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
717 permanently REMOVED.
719 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
720 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
721 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
722 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
723 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
724 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
725 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
726 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
727 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
728 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
729 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
730 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
731 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
733 * OBSOLETE languages
735 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
737 * REMOVED configurations and files
739 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
740 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
741 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
742 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
743 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
745 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
747 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
749 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
750 commands. The default is 1024.
752 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
754 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
756 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
758 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
759 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
760 from a file into memory (restore).
762 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
764 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
765 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
766 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
768 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
770 * New targets.
772 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
774 * Bug fixes
776 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
777 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
778 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
780 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
781 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
782 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
784 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
785 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
786 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
788 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
789 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
790 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
792 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
794 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
796 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
797 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
798 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
799 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
800 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
801 (notably embedded) targets.
803 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
805 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
806 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
807 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
808 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
810 * New command line option
812 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
814 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
816 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
817 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
818 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
819 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
820 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
821 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
822 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
823 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
824 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
825 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
827 * Changes in ARM configurations.
829 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
830 configuration is fully multi-arch.
832 * New native configurations
834 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
835 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
836 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
837 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
839 * New targets
841 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
843 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
845 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
846 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
847 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
848 permanently REMOVED.
850 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
851 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
852 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
853 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
854 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
856 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
858 * REMOVED configurations and files
860 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
861 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
862 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
863 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
864 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
865 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
866 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
867 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
868 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
869 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
870 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
871 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
872 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
874 * Changes to command line processing
876 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
877 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
879 * Changes to key bindings
881 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
883 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
885 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
887 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
888 corrupted.
890 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
892 Numerous documentation fixes.
894 Numerous testsuite fixes.
896 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
898 * New native configurations
900 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
901 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
902 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
903 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
904 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
905 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
907 * New targets
909 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
910 CRIS cris-axis
911 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
913 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
915 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
916 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
917 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
918 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
919 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
920 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
921 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
922 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
923 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
924 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
925 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
926 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
927 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
928 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
930 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
931 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
933 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
934 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
935 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
936 permanently REMOVED.
938 * REMOVED configurations and files
940 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
941 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
942 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
943 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
944 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
945 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
947 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
949 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
950 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
951 present.
953 * Other news:
955 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
957 * The MI enabled by default.
959 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
960 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
961 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
962 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
963 which is now deprecated.
965 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
967 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
968 main features are supported:
970 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
972 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
973 extension;
975 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
977 - a Pascal expression parser.
979 However, some important features are not yet supported.
981 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
983 - there are some problems with boolean types;
985 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
986 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
988 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
990 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
992 * Changes in completion.
994 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
995 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
996 users expect at the shell prompt.
998 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
999 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1000 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1001 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1002 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1003 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1004 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1006 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1008 * New platform-independent commands:
1010 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1011 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1012 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1014 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1016 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1017 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1018 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1020 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1022 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1023 multi-threaded programs though.
1025 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1027 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1029 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1030 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1031 supported.)
1033 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1035 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1036 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1037 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1038 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1039 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1040 registers.
1042 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1043 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1044 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1046 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1048 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1049 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1051 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1052 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1053 IDT.
1055 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1056 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1057 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1058 a given linear address.
1060 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1061 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1062 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1064 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1066 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1068 * Changes in documentation.
1070 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1071 Documentation License.
1073 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1074 manual.
1076 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1078 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1079 manual.
1081 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1082 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1083 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1085 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1087 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1088 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1089 contents of this file.
1091 * gdba.el deleted
1093 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1095 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1097 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1099 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1100 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1101 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1102 greater level of detail.
1104 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1106 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1107 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1108 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1109 written.
1111 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1113 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1114 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1115 machines ``out of the box''.
1117 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1118 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1119 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1120 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1121 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1123 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1124 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1125 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1126 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1127 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1129 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1130 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1131 also works.
1133 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1134 GDB.
1136 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1137 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1138 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1139 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1141 * New native configurations
1143 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1144 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1146 * New targets
1148 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1149 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1150 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1151 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1153 * OBSOLETE configurations
1155 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1156 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1157 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1158 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1159 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
1161 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1162 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1163 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1164 be permanently REMOVED.
1166 * Gould support removed
1168 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1170 * New features for SVR4
1172 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1173 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1174 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1176 * Many C++ enhancements
1178 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1179 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1181 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1183 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1184 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1185 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1186 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1188 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1189 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1191 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1193 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1194 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1195 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1197 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1198 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1200 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1202 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1203 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1204 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1206 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1208 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1209 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1210 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1212 * ``apropos'' command added.
1214 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1215 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1216 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1218 * New MI interface
1220 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1221 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1222 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1223 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1224 enabled by configuring with:
1226 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1228 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1230 * New native configurations
1232 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1233 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1234 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1236 * New targets
1238 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1239 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1240 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1242 * OBSOLETE configurations
1244 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1246 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1247 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1248 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1249 be permanently REMOVED.
1251 * ANSI/ISO C
1253 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1254 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1255 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1256 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1257 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1258 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1259 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1260 already.
1262 * Readline 2.2
1264 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1266 * set extension-language
1268 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1269 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1270 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1271 set extension-language .c c++
1272 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1273 and their associated languages.
1275 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1277 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1278 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1279 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1281 set processor NAME
1283 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1284 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1286 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1287 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1288 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1289 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1290 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1291 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1292 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1293 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1294 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1295 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1296 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1298 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1299 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1300 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1301 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1303 * HP-UX support
1305 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1306 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1307 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1308 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1309 for xdb and dbx commands.
1311 * Catchpoints
1313 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1314 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1315 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1317 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1318 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1319 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1321 * Debugging across forks
1323 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1324 in the inferior.
1326 * TUI
1328 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1329 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1330 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1332 * GDB remote protocol additions
1334 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1335 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1336 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1337 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1339 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1340 full 64-bit address. The command
1342 set remoteaddresssize 32
1344 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1345 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1346 will be discarded.
1348 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1349 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1351 maint packet heythere
1353 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1354 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1355 time.
1357 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1358 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1359 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1361 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1363 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1364 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1365 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1367 * mask-address variable for Mips
1369 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1370 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1371 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1373 * Higher serial baud rates
1375 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1376 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1377 to achieve all of these rates.)
1379 * i960 simulator
1381 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1382 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1385 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1387 * New native configurations
1389 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1390 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1391 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1392 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1393 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1394 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1395 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1397 * New targets
1399 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1400 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1401 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1402 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1403 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1404 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1405 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1406 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1407 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1408 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1409 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1411 * New debugging protocols
1413 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1414 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1415 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1416 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1417 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1418 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1420 * DWARF 2
1422 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1423 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1424 information.
1426 * Java frontend
1428 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1429 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1431 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1433 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1434 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1435 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1437 * Live range splitting
1439 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1440 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1441 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1443 * Hurd support
1445 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1446 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1448 * ARM Thumb support
1450 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1451 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1452 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1453 accordingly.
1455 * MIPS16 support
1457 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1458 instruction set.
1460 * Overlay support
1462 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1463 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1464 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1465 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1466 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1467 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1469 * info symbol
1471 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1472 the symbol at the specified address.
1474 * Trace support
1476 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1477 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1478 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1479 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1480 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1482 * MIPS simulator
1484 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1485 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1486 of most MIPS variants.
1488 * Sparc simulator
1490 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1491 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1492 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1494 * set architecture
1496 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1497 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1498 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1499 the possible architectures.
1501 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1503 * New native configurations
1505 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1506 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1507 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1508 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1509 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1510 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1512 * New targets
1514 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1515 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1516 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1517 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1518 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1519 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1520 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1522 * PowerPC simulator
1524 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1525 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1526 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1527 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1528 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1530 * Solaris 2.5
1532 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1534 * Windows 95/NT native
1536 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1537 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1538 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1539 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1540 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1542 * dont-repeat command
1544 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1545 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1546 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1547 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1549 * Send break instead of ^C
1551 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1552 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1553 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1555 * Remote protocol timeout
1557 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1558 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1559 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1561 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1563 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1564 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1565 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1566 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1567 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1569 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1570 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1571 automatically on hpux10.
1573 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1575 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1577 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1579 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1580 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1581 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1582 every character. The default value is 1050.
1584 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1586 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1587 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1588 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1589 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1590 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1591 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1593 * Speedups for remote debugging
1595 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1596 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1597 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1599 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1601 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1602 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1604 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1606 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1608 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1609 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1611 * Remote targets use caching
1613 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1614 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1615 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1616 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1617 off' turns the the data cache off.
1619 * Remote targets may have threads
1621 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1622 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1623 gdb/remote.c for details.
1625 * NetROM support
1627 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1628 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1629 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1630 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1631 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1632 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1633 sequence is something like
1635 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1636 load <prog>
1637 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1639 * Macintosh host
1641 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1642 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1643 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1644 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1645 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1646 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1647 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1648 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1650 * Autoconf
1652 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1653 but does simplify configuration and building.
1655 * hpux10
1657 GDB now supports hpux10.
1659 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1661 * New native configurations
1663 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1664 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1665 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1666 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1668 * New targets
1670 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1671 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1672 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1673 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1674 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1676 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1678 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1679 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1680 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1681 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1682 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1684 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1686 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1687 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1688 trivial example:
1689 define adder
1690 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1692 To execute the command use:
1693 adder 1 2 3
1695 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1696 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1697 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1699 * New `if' and `while' commands
1701 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1702 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1703 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1704 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1705 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1706 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1707 if the expression is zero.
1709 * Fortran source language mode
1711 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1712 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1713 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1714 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1715 Fortran compilers.
1717 * Better HPUX support
1719 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1720 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1721 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1722 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1723 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1725 adb -w a.out
1726 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1727 control-d
1729 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1730 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1732 adb -w a.out
1733 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1734 control-d
1736 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1737 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1738 external linkage.
1740 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1741 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1743 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1745 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1746 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1747 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1748 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1749 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1750 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1752 * New DOS host serial code
1754 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1755 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1756 a PC's serial port.
1758 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1760 * New "complete" command
1762 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1763 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1765 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1767 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1768 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1770 * Breakpoint hit counts
1772 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1773 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1774 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1775 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1776 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1777 that breakpoint.
1779 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1781 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1782 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1783 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1785 * Shared library breakpoints
1787 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1788 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1790 * Hardware watchpoints
1792 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1793 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1795 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1797 * Annotations
1799 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1800 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1802 * Improved Irix 5 support
1804 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1806 * Improved HPPA support
1808 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1810 * New native configurations
1812 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1813 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1814 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1815 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1817 * New targets
1819 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1820 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1821 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1823 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1825 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1826 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1828 * Fixes
1830 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1831 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1833 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1835 * Irix 5 is now supported
1837 * HPPA support
1839 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1840 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1841 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1842 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1843 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1846 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1848 * User visible changes:
1850 * Remote Debugging
1852 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1853 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1854 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1855 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1856 debugging info for the mips target).
1858 * DEC Alpha native support
1860 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1861 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1862 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1863 Alpha-specific notes.
1865 * Preliminary thread implementation
1867 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1869 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1871 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1872 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1873 for details).
1875 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1877 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1878 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1879 call methods, ...etc.
1881 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1883 * User visible changes:
1885 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1886 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1887 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1888 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1890 Filename completion now works.
1892 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1893 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1894 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1896 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1897 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1898 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1899 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1900 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1902 * DEC alpha support
1904 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1905 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1908 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1910 * Testsuite
1912 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1913 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1914 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1916 * C++ demangling
1918 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1919 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1920 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1921 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1922 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1924 * Simulators
1926 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1927 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1928 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1930 * New targets supported
1932 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1933 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1934 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1935 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1936 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1938 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1939 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1940 GO32 memory extender.
1942 * New remote protocols
1944 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1946 * New source languages supported
1948 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1949 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1950 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1953 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1955 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1957 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1958 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1959 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1960 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1961 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1962 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1964 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1966 * Faster and better demangling
1968 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1969 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1970 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1971 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1972 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1973 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1974 symbol lookups.
1976 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1977 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1978 compiler does not actually implement.
1980 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1982 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1983 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1984 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1985 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1986 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1987 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1988 fix.
1990 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1991 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1993 * Improved configure script
1995 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1996 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1997 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1998 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2000 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2001 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2002 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2003 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2004 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2005 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2007 * Documentation improvements
2009 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2010 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2011 before submitting changes.
2013 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2014 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2015 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2016 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2017 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2019 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2020 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2021 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2022 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2023 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2024 around this problem.
2026 * New features
2028 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2029 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2030 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2031 the target program.
2033 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2034 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2036 * New native hosts supported
2038 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2039 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2041 * New targets supported
2043 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2045 * New file formats supported
2047 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2048 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2050 * Major bug fixes
2052 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2054 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2055 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2057 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2058 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2059 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2061 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2062 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2064 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2065 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2066 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2067 libraries.
2069 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2070 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2071 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2072 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2073 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2075 * Internal improvements
2077 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2078 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2080 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2081 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2082 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2083 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2084 shared code that handles any of them.
2086 * New command line options
2088 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2090 * Mmalloc licensing
2092 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2093 General Public License.
2095 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2097 * Host/native/target split
2099 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2100 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2101 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2102 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2103 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2105 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2106 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2107 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2108 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2109 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2110 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2111 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2113 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2114 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2115 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2117 * New hosts supported
2119 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2120 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2121 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2123 * New targets supported
2125 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2126 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2128 * New native hosts supported
2130 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2131 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2132 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2134 * New file formats supported
2136 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2137 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2138 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2140 * New commands
2142 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2143 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2144 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2146 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2148 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2149 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2150 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2151 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2153 * C++ improvements
2155 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2156 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2157 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2159 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2161 * Major bug fixes
2163 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2164 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2165 by the compiler.
2167 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2168 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2170 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2171 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2172 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2173 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2174 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2175 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2177 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2178 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2179 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2180 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2182 * AMD 29k support
2184 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2185 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2186 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2187 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2188 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2190 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2191 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2192 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2193 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2195 * Remote interfaces
2197 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2198 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2199 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2200 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2201 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2202 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2203 each instruction being stepped through.
2205 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2206 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2208 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2209 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2210 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2211 processor with a serial port.
2213 * Configuration
2215 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2216 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2217 supported, and what files each one uses.
2219 * Library changes
2221 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2222 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2223 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2224 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2226 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2227 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2228 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2229 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2231 * Documentation
2233 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2234 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2235 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2236 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2237 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2238 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2240 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2243 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2245 * Better support for C++ function names
2247 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2248 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2249 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2250 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2251 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2253 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2254 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2255 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2256 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2257 for the list of formats.
2259 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2261 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2262 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2263 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2264 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2265 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2266 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2267 this problem.)
2269 * New 'maintenance' command
2271 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2272 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2273 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2275 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2276 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2277 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2278 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2279 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2280 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2282 The following commands are new:
2284 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2285 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2286 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2288 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2290 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2291 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2292 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2293 read after argv processing.
2295 * New hosts supported
2297 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2299 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2301 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2302 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2303 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2304 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2305 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2306 It costs extra.
2308 * New targets supported
2310 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2312 * More smarts about finding #include files
2314 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2315 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2316 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2317 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2318 the one that contains your sources.
2320 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2321 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2322 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2324 * Interesting infernals change
2326 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2327 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2328 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2329 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2331 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2333 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2334 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2335 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2337 See the ChangeLog for details.
2339 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2341 * New machines supported (host and target)
2343 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2345 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2347 * New malloc package
2349 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2350 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2351 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2352 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2353 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2354 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2356 * info proc
2358 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2359 'help info proc' for details.
2361 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2363 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2364 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2365 possible.
2367 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2369 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2370 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2371 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2372 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2373 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2374 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2376 * Cross byte order fixes
2378 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2379 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2381 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2383 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2384 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2385 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2386 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2387 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2388 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2389 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2390 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2391 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2392 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2394 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2395 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2396 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2397 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2399 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2400 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2401 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2402 use is:
2404 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2406 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2407 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2408 shared across multiple host platforms.
2410 * longjmp() handling
2412 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2413 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2414 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2415 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2417 * Solaris 2.0
2419 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2420 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2421 reading symbols.
2423 * Bug fixes
2425 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2426 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2427 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2429 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2431 * New machines supported (host and target)
2433 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2434 (except core files)
2435 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2436 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2438 * New machines supported (target)
2440 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2442 * C++ support
2444 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2445 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2446 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2448 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2449 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2450 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2451 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2452 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2453 released.
2455 * New features for SVR4
2457 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2458 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2459 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2461 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2462 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2463 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2465 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2466 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2468 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2470 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2471 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2472 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2473 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2474 same code linked statically.
2476 * New Getopt
2478 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2479 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2480 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2481 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2482 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2483 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2485 * Bugs fixed
2487 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2488 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2489 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2492 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2494 * New machines supported (host and target)
2496 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2497 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2498 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2500 * Almost SCO Unix support
2502 We had hoped to support:
2503 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2504 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2505 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2506 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2508 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2510 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2511 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2512 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2513 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2514 reqired (if any).
2516 * New Readline
2518 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2519 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2520 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2522 * Bugs fixed
2524 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2525 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2526 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2528 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2530 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2531 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2532 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2534 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2535 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2536 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2537 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2538 version 2.
2540 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2541 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2542 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2543 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2544 situation somewhat.
2546 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2547 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2548 methods.
2550 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2551 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2552 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2555 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2557 * Improved configuration
2559 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2560 Porting BFD is simpler.
2562 * Stepping improved
2564 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2565 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2566 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2567 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2569 * Bug fixing
2571 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2573 * New host supported (not target)
2575 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2578 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2580 * Multiple source language support
2582 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2583 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2584 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2585 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2586 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2587 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2589 * GDB and Modula-2
2591 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2592 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2593 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2594 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2596 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2597 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2598 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2600 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2601 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2603 * set write on/off
2605 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2606 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2607 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2608 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2609 effect immediately.
2611 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2613 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2614 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2615 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2616 examining core files.
2618 * set listsize
2620 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2621 The default is 10.
2623 * New machines supported (host and target)
2625 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2626 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2627 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2629 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2631 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2633 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2635 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2636 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2637 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2639 * New remote interfaces
2641 AMD 29000 Adapt
2642 AMD 29000 Minimon
2645 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2647 * New Facilities
2649 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2651 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2652 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2653 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2654 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2655 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2656 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2657 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2658 stub on the target system.
2660 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2662 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2663 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2664 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2666 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2667 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2670 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2672 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2673 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2675 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2676 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2677 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2679 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2680 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2681 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2682 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2684 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2685 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2686 it is already running. Default is ON.
2688 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2689 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2690 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2691 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2692 Default is ON.
2694 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2695 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2696 or the value of the environment variable
2697 GDBHISTFILE.
2699 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2700 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2701 HISTSIZE.
2703 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2704 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2705 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2707 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2708 history expansion will be performed on
2709 command line input. The default is OFF.
2711 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2712 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2713 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2715 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2716 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2717 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2718 variable TERM.
2720 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2721 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2722 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2723 variable TERM.
2725 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2726 ``set width'' instead.
2728 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2729 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2730 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2731 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2733 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2734 is OFF.
2736 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2737 "raw" form if off.
2739 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2740 like instructions.
2742 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2745 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2747 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2748 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2749 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2750 window.
2753 * Support for Shared Libraries
2755 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2756 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2757 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2758 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2759 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2760 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2761 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2762 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2764 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2765 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2766 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2768 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2771 * Watchpoints
2773 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2774 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2775 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2776 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2777 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2778 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2780 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2782 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2784 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2785 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2786 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2789 * C++ multiple inheritance
2791 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2792 for C++ programs.
2794 * C++ exception handling
2796 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2797 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2798 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2799 handler's context).
2801 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2802 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2803 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2805 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2806 current stack frame.
2809 * Minor command changes
2811 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2812 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2813 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2815 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2816 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2817 frames without printing.
2819 * New directory command
2821 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2822 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2823 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2824 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2825 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2827 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2829 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2830 for more details.
2832 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2833 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2834 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2835 where the program that you are debugging will run.