1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.0
8 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
13 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
16 * Multi-program debugging.
18 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
19 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
20 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
21 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
22 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
23 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
24 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
25 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
27 * Trace state variables
29 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
30 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
31 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
32 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
33 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
34 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
35 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
36 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
37 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
38 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
42 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
43 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
44 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
45 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
46 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
47 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
48 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
49 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
50 the regular trace command.
55 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
56 the arguments to be comma-separated.
59 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
60 which only declare a variable are not shown.
62 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
64 record save [<FILENAME>]
65 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
66 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
68 record restore <FILENAME>
69 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
70 earlier time, for replay debugging.
72 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
75 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
76 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
82 maint info program-spaces
83 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
85 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
86 show remote interrupt-sequence
87 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
88 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
89 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
90 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
91 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
93 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
94 show remote interrupt-on-connect
95 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
96 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
99 set remotebreak [on | off]
101 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
103 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
104 Create or modify a trace state variable.
107 List trace state variables and their values.
109 delete tvariable $NAME ...
110 Delete one or more trace state variables.
113 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
114 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
116 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
117 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
121 set follow-exec-mode new|same
122 show follow-exec-mode
123 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
124 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
125 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
127 set default-collect EXPR, ...
129 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
130 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
131 such as registers or a critical global variable.
136 Define a trace state variable.
139 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
143 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
145 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
147 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
148 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
149 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
150 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
151 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
153 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
154 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
155 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
156 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
157 for tracepoint actions.
159 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
160 in hex as well as in symbolic form."
162 * Process record and replay
164 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
165 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
166 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
169 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
170 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
171 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
174 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
175 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
178 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
179 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
180 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
181 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
182 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
183 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
184 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
185 the installation instructions for more information.
187 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
188 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
189 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
190 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
192 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
193 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
195 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
196 now complete on file names.
198 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
199 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
200 For instance, consider:
202 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
203 # struct example variable;
206 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
207 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
209 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
210 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
212 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
213 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
216 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
217 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
218 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
220 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
221 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
222 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
223 and simulator targets may also provide them.
228 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
231 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
232 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
233 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
236 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
237 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
240 Obtains additional operating system information
244 Read or write additional signal information.
246 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
248 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
249 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
250 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
252 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
255 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
256 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
258 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
259 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
260 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
262 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
263 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
265 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
267 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
269 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
270 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
272 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
273 list of section offsets.
275 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
276 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
277 have also been fixed.
279 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
280 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
281 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
283 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
286 template<typename T> class C { };
289 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
291 ptype C<char const *>
293 ptype C<const char *>
296 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
298 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
299 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
301 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
302 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
303 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
305 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
306 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
308 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
311 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
312 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
314 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
315 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
320 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
321 available is determined at configure time.
323 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
325 * Ada tasking support
327 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
331 Print the list of Ada tasks.
333 Print detailed information about task number N.
335 Print the task number of the current task.
337 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
339 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
340 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
342 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
344 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
345 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
346 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
347 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
348 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
349 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
352 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
353 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
356 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
357 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
358 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
359 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
362 * Multi-architecture debugging.
364 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
365 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
366 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
367 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
368 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
370 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
371 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
372 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
373 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
374 --enable-targets configure option.
376 * Non-stop mode debugging.
378 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
379 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
380 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
381 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
382 section in the user manual for more information.
384 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
385 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
386 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
387 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
388 extensions on linux targets.
390 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
392 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
393 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
394 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
395 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
396 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
397 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
398 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
399 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
400 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
402 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
404 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
406 maint set python print-stack
407 maint show python print-stack
408 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
411 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
416 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
420 Show operating system information about processes.
423 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
426 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
429 Detach from inferior number NUM.
432 Kill inferior number NUM.
437 show spu stop-on-load
438 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
440 set spu auto-flush-cache
441 show spu auto-flush-cache
442 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
443 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
445 set sh calling-convention
446 show sh calling-convention
447 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
451 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
453 set disassemble-next-line
454 show disassemble-next-line
455 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
458 set remote noack-packet
459 show remote noack-packet
460 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
461 under "New remote packets."
463 set remote query-attached-packet
464 show remote query-attached-packet
465 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
467 set remote read-siginfo-object
468 show remote read-siginfo-object
469 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
472 set remote write-siginfo-object
473 show remote write-siginfo-object
474 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
477 set remote reverse-continue
478 show remote reverse-continue
479 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
481 set remote reverse-step
482 show remote reverse-step
483 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
485 set displaced-stepping
486 show displaced-stepping
487 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
488 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
489 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
493 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
495 maint set internal-error
496 maint show internal-error
497 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
499 maint set internal-warning
500 maint show internal-warning
501 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
506 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
508 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
509 show multiple-symbols
510 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
511 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
512 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
514 set breakpoint always-inserted
515 show breakpoint always-inserted
516 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
517 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
518 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
520 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
521 show arm fallback-mode
522 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
524 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
525 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
526 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
527 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
529 set disable-randomization
530 show disable-randomization
531 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
532 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
533 multiple debugging sessions.
537 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
542 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
543 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
544 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
545 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
547 set target-wide-charset
548 show target-wide-charset
549 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
550 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
552 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
554 set tcp connect-timeout
555 show tcp connect-timeout
556 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
557 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
558 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
560 set libthread-db-search-path
561 show libthread-db-search-path
562 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
565 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
566 show schedule-multiple
567 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
572 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
573 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
574 affecting correctness.
576 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
577 show interactive-mode
578 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
579 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
580 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
581 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
582 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
587 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
588 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
589 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
593 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
594 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
595 alias for the `fork' command.
598 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
599 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
600 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
603 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
604 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
605 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
609 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
610 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
611 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
614 * New native configurations
616 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
618 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
622 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
623 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
624 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
627 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
628 (mingw32ce) debugging.
634 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
636 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
638 * New native configurations
640 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
641 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
645 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
646 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
648 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
650 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
651 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
652 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
653 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
655 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
656 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
658 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
661 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
662 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
663 and in inlined functions.
665 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
666 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
667 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
669 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
671 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
672 registers on PowerPC targets.
674 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
675 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
677 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
678 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
680 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
681 extended-remote mode.
683 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
684 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
685 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
686 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
688 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
689 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
690 target architectures.
692 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
693 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
694 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
695 stored in two consecutive float registers.
697 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
700 * Improved support for debugging Ada
701 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
703 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
704 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
705 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
706 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
708 - Improved command completion in Ada
711 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
716 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
717 show print frame-arguments
718 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
719 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
724 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
731 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
740 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
743 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
747 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
749 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
751 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
752 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
753 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
755 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
756 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
757 -Bsymbolic linker option.
759 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
760 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
763 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
764 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
766 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
767 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
769 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
771 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
772 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
773 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
775 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
776 automatically displayed as character or string data.
778 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
779 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
782 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
783 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
784 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
786 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
789 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
790 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
791 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
793 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
795 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
797 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
798 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
799 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
801 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
802 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
804 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
805 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
806 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
807 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
808 Windows and SymbianOS).
810 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
811 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
813 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
814 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
820 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
821 when debugging using remote targets.
823 set mem inaccessible-by-default
824 show mem inaccessible-by-default
825 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
826 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
827 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
828 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
829 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
831 set breakpoint auto-hw
832 show breakpoint auto-hw
833 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
834 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
835 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
836 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
837 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
838 including "next" and "finish".
841 catch exception unhandled
842 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
845 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
849 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
850 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
851 an alias to "set sysroot".
854 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
855 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
858 * New native configurations
860 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
865 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
866 not query the target for its built-in description.
870 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
871 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
872 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
877 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
878 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
881 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
886 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
887 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
889 qXfer:libraries:read:
890 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
891 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
892 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
893 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
897 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
906 i[34567]86-*-netware*
907 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
908 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
910 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
913 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
914 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
923 * Other removed features
930 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
937 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
942 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
943 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
948 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
949 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
951 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
953 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
954 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
955 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
956 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
960 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
961 in debugging information.
965 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
966 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
968 set mips stack-arg-size
969 set mips saved-gpreg-size
971 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
973 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
978 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
980 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
981 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
982 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
984 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
985 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
988 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
989 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
991 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
992 stub provides the required support.
994 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
995 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1000 unset substitute-path
1001 show substitute-path
1002 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1003 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1004 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1005 between compilation and debugging.
1009 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1010 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1011 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1015 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1017 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1018 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1020 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1022 * New remote packets
1025 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1026 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1027 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1028 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1032 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1033 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1035 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1036 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1037 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1042 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1044 * Removed remote packets
1047 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1048 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1050 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1054 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1056 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1060 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1061 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1063 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1065 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1067 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1068 previously saved state.
1070 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1072 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1074 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1075 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1077 info forks List forks of the user program that
1078 are available to be debugged.
1080 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1081 forks of the user program that are
1082 available to be debugged.
1084 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1085 that are available to be debugged (and
1086 kill the forked process).
1088 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1089 that are available to be debugged (and
1090 allow the process to continue).
1094 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1096 * Improved Windows host support
1098 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1099 native console support, and remote communications using either
1100 network sockets or serial ports.
1102 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1104 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1105 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1106 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1107 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1108 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1109 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1113 The ARM rdi-share module.
1115 The Netware NLM debug server.
1117 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1119 * New native configurations
1121 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1122 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1126 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1128 * New command line options
1130 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1131 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1132 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1133 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1134 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1135 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1136 with the --command (-x) option.
1138 * Deprecated commands removed
1140 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1144 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1145 othernames set arm disassembler
1146 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1147 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1148 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1151 * New BSD user-level threads support
1153 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1154 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1157 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1158 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1159 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1161 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1162 are not yet supported.
1164 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1165 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1167 * REMOVED configurations and files
1169 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1170 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1171 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1173 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1175 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1176 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1179 * VAX floating point support
1181 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1183 * User-defined command support
1185 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1186 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1187 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1189 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1191 * New command line option
1193 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1196 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1198 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1199 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1200 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1201 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1202 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1204 * Internationalization
1206 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1207 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1208 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1212 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1213 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1214 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1216 * New native configurations
1218 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1222 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1223 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1225 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1227 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1228 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1229 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1232 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1233 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1234 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1244 powerpc bdm protocol
1246 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1247 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1249 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1251 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1252 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1253 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1254 permanently REMOVED.
1263 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1265 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1267 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1268 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1271 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1273 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1274 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1275 IRIX long double values).
1279 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1280 command. This problem has been fixed.
1282 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1284 * Fix for ``many threads''
1286 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1287 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1290 ptrace: No such process.
1291 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1293 This problem has been fixed.
1295 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1297 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1300 * New ``start'' command.
1302 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1304 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1306 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1307 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1308 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1310 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1311 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1312 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1313 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1314 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1315 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1316 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1317 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1318 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1320 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1322 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1323 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1324 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1325 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1326 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1328 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1329 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1330 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1332 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1334 * New native configurations
1336 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1337 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1338 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1339 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1340 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1341 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1342 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1344 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1346 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1347 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1348 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1349 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1350 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1351 work, was also included.
1353 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1354 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1364 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1365 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1367 * REMOVED configurations and files
1369 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1370 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1371 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1372 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1373 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1374 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1375 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1376 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1377 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1378 sonymips mips-sony-*
1379 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1381 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1383 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1385 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1386 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1387 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1388 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1391 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1393 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1394 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1395 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1396 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1397 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1398 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1401 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1403 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1405 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1406 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1407 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1409 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1411 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1412 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1414 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1416 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1417 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1418 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1420 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1422 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1423 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1425 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1427 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1428 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1429 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1431 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1433 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1434 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1435 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1437 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1439 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1441 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1442 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1444 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1446 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1447 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1448 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1449 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1451 * Revised SPARC target
1453 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1454 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1455 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1456 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1457 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1461 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1462 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1463 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1466 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1468 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1469 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1472 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1474 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1475 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1476 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1477 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1478 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1479 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1480 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1481 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1482 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1484 * New native configurations
1486 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1487 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1488 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1489 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1490 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1492 * New debugging protocols
1494 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1496 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1498 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1499 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1500 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1502 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1504 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1505 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1506 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1507 permanently REMOVED.
1509 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1510 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1511 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1512 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1513 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1514 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1515 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1516 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1517 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1518 sonymips mips-sony-*
1519 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1521 * REMOVED configurations and files
1523 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1524 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1525 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1526 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1527 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1528 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1529 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1530 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1531 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1532 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1533 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1534 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1535 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1536 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1537 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1538 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1539 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1541 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1545 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1546 integrated into GDB.
1548 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1550 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1551 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1552 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1555 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1556 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1557 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1561 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1562 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1563 remote protocol documentation for details.
1565 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1567 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1568 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1569 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1572 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1574 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1575 per-thread variables.
1577 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1579 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1580 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1582 * Separate debug info.
1584 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1585 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1586 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1587 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1588 and optional debug files.
1590 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1592 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1593 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1596 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1597 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1601 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1602 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1603 considered "useable".
1605 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1607 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1608 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1611 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1613 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1614 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1616 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1618 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1619 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1622 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1624 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1625 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1629 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1630 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1631 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1632 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1633 data, for more informative profiling results.
1635 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1637 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1638 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1639 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1641 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1644 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1645 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1646 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1647 in a subsequent -var-update.
1649 * New native configurations.
1651 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1653 * Multi-arched targets.
1655 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1656 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1658 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1660 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1661 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1662 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1663 permanently REMOVED.
1665 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1666 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1667 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1668 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1669 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1670 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1671 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1672 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1673 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1674 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1675 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1676 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1678 * REMOVED configurations and files
1681 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1682 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1683 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1684 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1685 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1686 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1688 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1689 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1690 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1691 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1692 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1693 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1695 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1697 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1698 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1699 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1700 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1701 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1703 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1705 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1707 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1708 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1709 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1710 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1711 shared libs like mad''.
1713 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1715 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1716 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1717 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1718 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1720 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1722 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1723 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1726 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1727 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1729 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1730 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1732 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1733 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1734 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1735 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1737 * Multi-arched targets.
1739 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1740 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1742 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1743 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1744 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1748 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1751 * New native configurations
1753 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1754 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1755 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1756 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1758 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1760 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1761 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1762 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1763 permanently REMOVED.
1765 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1766 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1767 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1768 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1769 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1770 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1771 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1772 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1773 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1774 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1776 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1777 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1779 * OBSOLETE languages
1781 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1783 * REMOVED configurations and files
1785 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1786 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1787 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1788 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1789 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1791 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1793 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1795 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1796 commands. The default is 1024.
1798 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1800 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1802 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1804 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1805 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1806 from a file into memory (restore).
1808 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1810 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1811 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1812 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1814 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1822 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1823 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1824 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1826 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1827 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1828 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1830 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1831 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1832 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1834 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1835 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1836 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1838 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1840 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1842 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1843 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1844 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1845 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1846 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1847 (notably embedded) targets.
1849 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1851 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1852 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1853 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1854 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1856 * New command line option
1858 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1860 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1862 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1863 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1864 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1865 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1866 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1867 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1868 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1869 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1870 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1871 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1873 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1875 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1876 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1878 * New native configurations
1880 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1881 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1882 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1883 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1887 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1889 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1891 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1892 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1893 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1894 permanently REMOVED.
1896 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1897 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1898 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1899 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1900 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1902 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1904 * REMOVED configurations and files
1906 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1908 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1909 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1910 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1911 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1912 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1913 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1914 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1915 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1916 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1917 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1918 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1920 * Changes to command line processing
1922 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1923 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1925 * Changes to key bindings
1927 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1929 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1931 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1933 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1936 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1938 Numerous documentation fixes.
1940 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1942 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1944 * New native configurations
1946 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1947 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1948 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1949 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1950 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1951 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1955 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1957 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1959 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1961 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1962 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1963 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1964 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1965 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1967 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1968 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1969 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1970 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1971 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1972 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1973 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1974 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1976 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1977 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1979 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1980 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1981 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1982 permanently REMOVED.
1984 * REMOVED configurations and files
1986 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1987 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1989 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1993 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1995 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1996 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2001 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2003 * The MI enabled by default.
2005 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2006 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2007 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2008 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2009 which is now deprecated.
2011 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2013 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2014 main features are supported:
2016 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2018 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2021 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2023 - a Pascal expression parser.
2025 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2027 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2029 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2031 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2032 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2034 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2036 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2038 * Changes in completion.
2040 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2041 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2042 users expect at the shell prompt.
2044 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2045 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2046 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2047 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2048 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2049 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2050 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2052 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2054 * New platform-independent commands:
2056 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2057 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2058 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2060 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2062 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2063 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2064 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2066 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2068 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2069 multi-threaded programs though.
2071 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2073 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2075 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2076 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2079 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2081 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2082 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2083 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2084 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2085 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2088 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2089 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2090 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2092 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2094 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2095 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2097 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2098 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2101 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2102 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2103 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2104 a given linear address.
2106 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2107 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2108 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2110 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2112 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2114 * Changes in documentation.
2116 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2117 Documentation License.
2119 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2122 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2124 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2127 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2128 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2129 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2131 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2133 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2134 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2135 contents of this file.
2139 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2141 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2143 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2145 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2146 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2147 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2148 greater level of detail.
2150 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2152 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2153 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2154 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2157 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2159 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2160 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2161 machines ``out of the box''.
2163 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2164 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2165 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2166 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2167 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2169 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2170 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2171 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2172 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2173 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2175 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2176 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2179 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2182 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2183 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2184 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2185 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2187 * New native configurations
2189 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2190 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2194 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2195 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2196 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2197 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2199 * OBSOLETE configurations
2201 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2202 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2204 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2207 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2208 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2209 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2210 be permanently REMOVED.
2212 * Gould support removed
2214 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2216 * New features for SVR4
2218 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2219 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2220 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2222 * Many C++ enhancements
2224 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2225 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2227 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2229 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2230 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2231 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2232 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2234 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2235 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2237 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2239 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2240 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2241 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2243 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2244 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2246 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2248 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2249 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2250 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2252 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2254 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2255 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2256 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2258 * ``apropos'' command added.
2260 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2261 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2262 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2266 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2267 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2268 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2269 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2270 enabled by configuring with:
2272 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2274 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2276 * New native configurations
2278 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2279 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2280 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2284 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2285 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2286 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2288 * OBSOLETE configurations
2290 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2292 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2293 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2294 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2295 be permanently REMOVED.
2299 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2300 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2301 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2302 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2303 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2304 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2305 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2310 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2312 * set extension-language
2314 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2315 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2316 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2317 set extension-language .c c++
2318 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2319 and their associated languages.
2321 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2323 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2324 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2325 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2329 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2330 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2332 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2333 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2335 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2336 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2337 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2338 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2339 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2340 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2341 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2342 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2344 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2345 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2346 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2347 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2351 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2352 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2353 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2354 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2355 for xdb and dbx commands.
2359 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2360 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2361 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2363 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2364 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2365 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2367 * Debugging across forks
2369 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2374 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2375 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2376 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2378 * GDB remote protocol additions
2380 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2381 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2382 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2383 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2385 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2386 full 64-bit address. The command
2388 set remoteaddresssize 32
2390 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2391 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2394 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2395 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2397 maint packet heythere
2399 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2400 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2403 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2404 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2405 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2407 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2409 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2410 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2411 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2413 * mask-address variable for Mips
2415 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2416 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2417 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2419 * Higher serial baud rates
2421 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2422 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2423 to achieve all of these rates.)
2427 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2428 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2431 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2433 * New native configurations
2435 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2436 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2437 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2438 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2439 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2440 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2441 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2445 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2446 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2447 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2448 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2449 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2450 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2451 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2452 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2453 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2454 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2455 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2457 * New debugging protocols
2459 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2460 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2461 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2462 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2463 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2464 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2468 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2469 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2474 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2475 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2477 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2479 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2480 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2481 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2483 * Live range splitting
2485 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2486 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2487 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2491 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2492 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2496 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2497 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2498 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2503 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2508 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2509 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2510 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2511 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2512 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2513 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2517 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2518 the symbol at the specified address.
2522 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2523 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2524 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2525 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2526 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2530 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2531 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2532 of most MIPS variants.
2536 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2537 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2538 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2542 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2543 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2544 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2545 the possible architectures.
2547 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2549 * New native configurations
2551 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2552 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2553 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2554 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2555 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2556 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2560 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2561 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2562 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2563 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2564 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2566 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2570 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2571 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2572 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2573 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2574 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2578 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2580 * Windows 95/NT native
2582 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2583 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2584 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2585 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2586 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2588 * dont-repeat command
2590 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2591 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2592 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2593 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2595 * Send break instead of ^C
2597 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2598 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2599 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2601 * Remote protocol timeout
2603 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2604 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2605 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2607 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2609 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2610 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2611 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2612 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2613 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2615 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2616 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2617 automatically on hpux10.
2619 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2621 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2623 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2625 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2626 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2627 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2628 every character. The default value is 1050.
2630 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2632 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2633 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2634 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2635 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2636 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2637 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2639 * Speedups for remote debugging
2641 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2642 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2643 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2645 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2647 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2648 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2650 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2652 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2654 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2655 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2657 * Remote targets use caching
2659 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2660 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2661 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2662 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2663 off' turns the the data cache off.
2665 * Remote targets may have threads
2667 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2668 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2669 gdb/remote.c for details.
2673 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2674 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2675 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2676 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2677 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2678 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2679 sequence is something like
2681 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2683 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2687 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2688 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2689 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2690 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2691 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2692 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2693 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2694 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2698 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2699 but does simplify configuration and building.
2703 GDB now supports hpux10.
2705 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2707 * New native configurations
2709 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2710 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2711 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2712 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2716 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2717 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2718 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2719 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2722 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2724 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2725 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2726 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2727 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2728 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2730 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2732 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2733 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2736 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2738 To execute the command use:
2741 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2742 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2743 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2745 * New `if' and `while' commands
2747 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2748 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2749 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2750 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2751 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2752 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2753 if the expression is zero.
2755 * Fortran source language mode
2757 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2758 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2759 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2760 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2763 * Better HPUX support
2765 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2766 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2767 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2768 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2769 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2775 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2776 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2782 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2783 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2786 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2787 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2789 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2791 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2792 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2793 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2794 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2795 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2796 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2798 * New DOS host serial code
2800 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2801 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2804 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2806 * New "complete" command
2808 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2809 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2811 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2813 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2814 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2816 * Breakpoint hit counts
2818 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2819 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2820 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2821 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2822 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2825 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2827 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2828 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2829 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2831 * Shared library breakpoints
2833 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2834 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2836 * Hardware watchpoints
2838 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2839 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2841 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2845 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2846 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2848 * Improved Irix 5 support
2850 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2852 * Improved HPPA support
2854 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2856 * New native configurations
2858 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2859 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2860 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2861 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2865 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2866 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2869 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2871 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2872 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2876 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2877 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2879 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2881 * Irix 5 is now supported
2885 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2886 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2887 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2888 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2889 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2892 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2894 * User visible changes:
2898 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2899 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2900 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2901 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2902 debugging info for the mips target).
2904 * DEC Alpha native support
2906 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2907 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2908 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2909 Alpha-specific notes.
2911 * Preliminary thread implementation
2913 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2915 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2917 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2918 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2921 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2923 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2924 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2925 call methods, ...etc.
2927 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2929 * User visible changes:
2931 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2932 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2933 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2934 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2936 Filename completion now works.
2938 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2939 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2940 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2942 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2943 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2944 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2945 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2946 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2950 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2951 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2954 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2958 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2959 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2960 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2964 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2965 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2966 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2967 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2968 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2972 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2973 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2974 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2976 * New targets supported
2978 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2979 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2980 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2981 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2982 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2984 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2985 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2986 GO32 memory extender.
2988 * New remote protocols
2990 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2992 * New source languages supported
2994 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2995 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2996 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2999 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3001 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3003 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3004 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3005 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3006 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3007 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3008 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3010 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3012 * Faster and better demangling
3014 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3015 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3016 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3017 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3018 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3019 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3022 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3023 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3024 compiler does not actually implement.
3026 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3028 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3029 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3030 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3031 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3032 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3033 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3036 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3037 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3039 * Improved configure script
3041 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3042 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3043 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3044 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3046 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3047 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3048 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3049 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3050 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3051 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3053 * Documentation improvements
3055 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3056 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3057 before submitting changes.
3059 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3060 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3061 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3062 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3063 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3065 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3066 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3067 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3068 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3069 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3070 around this problem.
3074 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3075 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3076 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3079 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3080 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3082 * New native hosts supported
3084 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3085 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3087 * New targets supported
3089 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3091 * New file formats supported
3093 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3094 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3098 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3100 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3101 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3103 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3104 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3105 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3107 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3108 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3110 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3111 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3112 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3115 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3116 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3117 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3118 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3119 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3121 * Internal improvements
3123 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3124 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3126 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3127 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3128 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3129 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3130 shared code that handles any of them.
3132 * New command line options
3134 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3138 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3139 General Public License.
3141 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3143 * Host/native/target split
3145 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3146 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3147 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3148 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3149 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3151 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3152 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3153 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3154 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3155 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3156 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3157 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3159 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3160 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3161 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3163 * New hosts supported
3165 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3166 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3167 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3169 * New targets supported
3171 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3172 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3174 * New native hosts supported
3176 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3177 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3178 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3180 * New file formats supported
3182 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3183 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3184 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3188 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3189 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3190 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3192 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3194 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3195 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3196 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3197 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3201 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3202 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3203 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3205 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3209 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3210 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3213 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3214 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3216 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3217 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3218 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3219 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3220 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3221 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3223 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3224 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3225 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3226 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3230 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3231 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3232 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3233 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3234 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3236 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3237 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3238 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3239 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3243 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3244 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3245 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3246 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3247 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3248 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3249 each instruction being stepped through.
3251 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3252 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3254 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3255 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3256 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3257 processor with a serial port.
3261 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3262 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3263 supported, and what files each one uses.
3267 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3268 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3269 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3270 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3272 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3273 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3274 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3275 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3279 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3280 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3281 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3282 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3283 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3284 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3286 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3289 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3291 * Better support for C++ function names
3293 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3294 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3295 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3296 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3297 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3299 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3300 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3301 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3302 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3303 for the list of formats.
3305 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3307 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3308 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3309 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3310 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3311 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3312 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3315 * New 'maintenance' command
3317 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3318 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3319 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3321 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3322 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3323 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3324 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3325 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3326 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3328 The following commands are new:
3330 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3331 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3332 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3334 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3336 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3337 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3338 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3339 read after argv processing.
3341 * New hosts supported
3343 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3345 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3347 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3348 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3349 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3350 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3351 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3354 * New targets supported
3356 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3358 * More smarts about finding #include files
3360 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3361 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3362 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3363 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3364 the one that contains your sources.
3366 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3367 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3368 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3370 * Interesting infernals change
3372 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3373 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3374 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3375 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3377 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3379 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3380 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3381 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3383 See the ChangeLog for details.
3385 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3387 * New machines supported (host and target)
3389 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3391 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3393 * New malloc package
3395 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3396 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3397 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3398 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3399 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3400 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3404 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3405 'help info proc' for details.
3407 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3409 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3410 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3413 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3415 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3416 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3417 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3418 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3419 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3420 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3422 * Cross byte order fixes
3424 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3425 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3427 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3429 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3430 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3431 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3432 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3433 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3434 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3435 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3436 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3437 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3438 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3440 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3441 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3442 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3443 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3445 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3446 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3447 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3450 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3452 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3453 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3454 shared across multiple host platforms.
3456 * longjmp() handling
3458 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3459 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3460 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3461 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3465 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3466 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3471 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3472 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3473 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3475 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3477 * New machines supported (host and target)
3479 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3481 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3482 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3484 * New machines supported (target)
3486 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3490 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3491 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3492 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3494 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3495 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3496 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3497 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3498 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3501 * New features for SVR4
3503 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3504 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3505 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3507 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3508 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3509 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3511 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3512 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3514 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3516 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3517 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3518 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3519 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3520 same code linked statically.
3524 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3525 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3526 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3527 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3528 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3529 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3533 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3534 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3535 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3538 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3540 * New machines supported (host and target)
3542 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3543 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3544 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3546 * Almost SCO Unix support
3548 We had hoped to support:
3549 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3550 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3551 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3552 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3554 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3556 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3557 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3558 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3559 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3564 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3565 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3566 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3570 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3571 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3572 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3574 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3576 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3577 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3578 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3580 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3581 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3582 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3583 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3586 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3587 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3588 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3589 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3592 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3593 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3596 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3597 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3598 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3601 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3603 * Improved configuration
3605 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3606 Porting BFD is simpler.
3610 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3611 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3612 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3613 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3617 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3619 * New host supported (not target)
3621 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3624 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3626 * Multiple source language support
3628 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3629 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3630 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3631 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3632 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3633 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3637 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3638 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3639 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3640 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3642 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3643 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3644 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3646 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3647 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3651 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3652 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3653 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3654 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3657 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3659 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3660 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3661 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3662 examining core files.
3666 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3669 * New machines supported (host and target)
3671 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3672 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3673 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3675 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3677 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3679 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3681 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3682 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3683 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3685 * New remote interfaces
3691 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3695 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3697 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3698 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3699 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3700 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3701 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3702 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3703 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3704 stub on the target system.
3706 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3708 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3709 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3710 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3712 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3713 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3716 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3718 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3719 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3721 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3722 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3723 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3725 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3726 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3727 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3728 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3730 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3731 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3732 it is already running. Default is ON.
3734 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3735 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3736 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3737 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3740 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3741 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3742 or the value of the environment variable
3745 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3746 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3749 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3750 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3751 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3753 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3754 history expansion will be performed on
3755 command line input. The default is OFF.
3757 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3758 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3759 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3761 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3762 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3763 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3766 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3767 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3768 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3771 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3772 ``set width'' instead.
3774 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3775 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3776 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3777 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3779 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3782 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3785 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3788 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3791 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3793 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3794 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3795 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3799 * Support for Shared Libraries
3801 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3802 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3803 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3804 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3805 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3806 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3807 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3808 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3810 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3811 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3812 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3814 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3819 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3820 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3821 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3822 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3823 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3824 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3826 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3828 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3830 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3831 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3832 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3835 * C++ multiple inheritance
3837 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3840 * C++ exception handling
3842 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3843 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3844 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3847 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3848 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3849 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3851 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3852 current stack frame.
3855 * Minor command changes
3857 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3858 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3859 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3861 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3862 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3863 frames without printing.
3865 * New directory command
3867 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3868 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3869 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3870 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3871 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3873 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3875 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3878 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3879 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3880 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3881 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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