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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
5
6 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
7
8 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
9 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
10 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
11 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
12 such as in system-wide init files.
13
14 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
15 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
16 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
17 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
18
19 * Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
20
21 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
22 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
23
24 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
25 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
26 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
27
28 * Python API
29
30 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
31 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
32 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
33 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
34 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
35
36 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
37 type was defined in.
38
39 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
40 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
41 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
42 is given.
43
44 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
45 symbols with static linkage.
46
47 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
48 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
49
50 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
51 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
52
53 * New commands
54
55 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
56 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
57 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
58 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
59 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
60 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
61 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
62
63 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
64 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
65 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
66 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
67 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
68 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
69 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
70 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
71 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
72 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
73 of array elements to print.
74
75 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
76 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
77
78 set may-call-functions [on|off]
79 show may-call-functions
80 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
81 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
82 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
83 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
84 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
85 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
86 in the program.
87
88 set print finish [on|off]
89 show print finish
90 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
91 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
92 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
93 default is `on'.
94
95 set print max-depth
96 show print max-depth
97 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
98 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
99 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
100 the old behavior back.
101
102 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
103 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
104 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
105
106 set style title foreground COLOR
107 set style title background COLOR
108 set style title intensity VALUE
109 Control the styling of titles.
110
111 set style highlight foreground COLOR
112 set style highlight background COLOR
113 set style highlight intensity VALUE
114 Control the styling of highlightings.
115
116 maint set test-settings KIND
117 maint show test-settings KIND
118 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
119 infrastructure.
120
121 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
122 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
123 show print frame-info
124 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
125 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
126 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
127 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
128
129 * Changed commands
130
131 help
132 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
133 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
134 command names.
135
136 apropos [-v] REGEXP
137 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
138 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
139 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
140 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
141 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
142
143 printf
144 eval
145 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
146 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
147 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
148 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
149
150 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
151 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
152 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
153 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
154 parts of the files.
155
156 show style
157 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
158 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
159 the user visualize the different styles.
160
161 set print frame-arguments
162 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
163 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
164
165 set print raw-frame-arguments
166 show print raw-frame-arguments
167
168 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
169 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
170 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
171 release.
172
173 maint test-options require-delimiter
174 maint test-options unknown-is-error
175 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
176 maint show test-options-completion-result
177 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
178 framework.
179
180 * New command options, command completion
181
182 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
183 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
184 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
185 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
186 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
187 number of commands got support for new command options in this
188 release:
189
190 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
191 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
192 set by "set print" subcommands:
193
194 -address [on|off]
195 -array [on|off]
196 -array-indexes [on|off]
197 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
198 -null-stop [on|off]
199 -object [on|off]
200 -pretty [on|off]
201 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
202 -static-members [on|off]
203 -symbol [on|off]
204 -union [on|off]
205 -vtbl [on|off]
206
207 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
208 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
209 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
210 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
211
212 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
213 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
214 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
215
216 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
217 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
218 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
219 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
220 |location-and-address|short-location
221 -past-main [on|off]
222 -past-entry [on|off]
223
224 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
225 exposed as command options too:
226
227 -full
228 -no-filters
229 -hide
230
231 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
232 support the following options:
233
234 -past-main [on|off]
235 -past-entry [on|off]
236
237 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
238 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
239
240 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
241 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
242 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
243 like for example:
244
245 (gdb) p -r -p -o 0 -- *myptr
246
247 The above is equivalent to:
248
249 (gdb) print -raw -pretty -object off -- *myptr
250
251 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
252 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
253 variables" and "info functions".
254
255 * Completion improvements
256
257 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
258 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
259 abbreviated.
260
261 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
262 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
263 commands.
264
265 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
266 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
267 completes on filenames.
268
269 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
270 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
271
272 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
273
274 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
275 elements unlimited".
276
277 * New MI commands
278
279 -complete
280 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
281 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
282 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
283
284 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
285 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
286 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
287
288 * Testsuite
289
290 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
291 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
292 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
293 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
294
295 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
296
297 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
298 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
299
300 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
301
302 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
303 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
304 HTM registers.
305
306 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
307 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
308 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
309 and operators.
310
311 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
312 (the C++ plug-in).
313
314 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
315 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
316 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
317
318 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
319 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
320
321 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
322 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
323 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
324 in the GDB user manual.
325
326 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
327 executed failed.
328
329 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
330
331 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
332 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
333 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
334 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
335 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
336 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
337 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
338 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
339 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
340 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
341 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
342 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
343
344 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
345 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
346 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
347 information.
348
349 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
350 lucid.
351
352 * New commands
353
354 set debug compile-cplus-types
355 show debug compile-cplus-types
356 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
357 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
358 for other languages.
359
360 set debug skip
361 show debug skip
362 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
363 displayed.
364
365 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
366 Apply a command to some frames.
367 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
368 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
369
370 taas COMMAND
371 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
372 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
373
374 faas COMMAND
375 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
376 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
377
378 tfaas COMMAND
379 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
380 output).
381 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
382
383 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
384 maint show dwarf unwinders
385 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
386
387 info proc files
388 Display a list of open files for a process.
389
390 * Changed commands
391
392 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
393 These commands all now take a frame specification which
394 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
395 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
396 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
397 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
398 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
399
400 target remote FILENAME
401 target extended-remote FILENAME
402 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
403 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
404
405 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
406 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
407 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
408 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
409 These commands can now print only the searched entities
410 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
411 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
412 printing headers or informations messages.
413
414 info functions
415 info types
416 info variables
417 rbreak
418 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
419 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
420 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
421 the shown entities.
422
423 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
424 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
425 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
426 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
427
428 set tui tab-width NCHARS
429 show tui tab-width NCHARS
430 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
431
432 set style enabled [on|off]
433 show style enabled
434 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
435 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
436
437 set style sources [on|off]
438 show style sources
439 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
440 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
441 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
442
443 set style filename foreground COLOR
444 set style filename background COLOR
445 set style filename intensity VALUE
446 Control the styling of file names.
447
448 set style function foreground COLOR
449 set style function background COLOR
450 set style function intensity VALUE
451 Control the styling of function names.
452
453 set style variable foreground COLOR
454 set style variable background COLOR
455 set style variable intensity VALUE
456 Control the styling of variable names.
457
458 set style address foreground COLOR
459 set style address background COLOR
460 set style address intensity VALUE
461 Control the styling of addresses.
462
463 * MI changes
464
465 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
466
467 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
468 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
469 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
470 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
471 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
472
473 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
474 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
475
476 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
477 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
478 the following commands and events:
479
480 - -break-insert
481 - -break-info
482 - =breakpoint-created
483 - =breakpoint-modified
484
485 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
486 this behavior with previous MI versions.
487
488 * New native configurations
489
490 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
491 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
492
493 * New targets
494
495 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
496 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
497 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
498 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
499 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
500 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
501
502 * Removed targets
503
504 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
505 before Windows XP.
506
507 * Python API
508
509 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
510
511 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
512 space associated to that inferior.
513
514 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
515 of objfiles associated to that program space.
516
517 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
518 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
519 the gdb core.
520
521 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
522 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
523 correct and did not work properly.
524
525 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
526 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
527
528 * Configure changes
529
530 --enable-ubsan
531
532 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
533 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
534 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
535 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
536 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
537
538 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
539
540 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
541 for the MIPS target.
542
543 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
544 offset to all sections.
545
546 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
547 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
548 address of individual sections using '-s'.
549
550 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
551 (address of the text section).
552
553 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
554 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
555 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
556 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
557 default.
558
559 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
560 for the rest of the current command.
561
562 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
563 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
564
565 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
566 files created on FreeBSD systems.
567
568 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
569 alignof.
570
571 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
572 the vector length while the process is running.
573
574 * New commands
575
576 set debug fbsd-nat
577 show debug fbsd-nat
578 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
579
580 set|show varsize-limit
581 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
582 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
583 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
584
585 set|show record btrace cpu
586 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
587 branch trace decode.
588
589 maint check libthread-db
590 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
591 library
592
593 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
594 maint show check-libthread-db
595 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
596 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
597 perform such checks.
598
599 * Python API
600
601 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
602
603 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
604 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
605
606 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
607
608 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
609 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
610 of convenience variables.
611
612 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
613 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
614 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
615
616 * New targets
617
618 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
619
620 * Removed targets and native configurations
621
622 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
623 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
624 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
625 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
626
627 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
628
629 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
630 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
631 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
632 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
633 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
634 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
635 reported.
636
637 * Configure changes
638
639 --enable-codesign=CERT
640 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
641 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
642 gdb to work properly.
643
644 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
645 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
646
647 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
648
649 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
650 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
651 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
652
653 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
654 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
655
656 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
657 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
658 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
659 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
660 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
661
662 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
663 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
664 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
665 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
666
667 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
668 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
669
670 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
671 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
672 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
673
674 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
675 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
676 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
677
678 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
679 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
680 environment" command.
681
682 * Completion improvements
683
684 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
685 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
686 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
687 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
688 correctly:
689
690 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
691 (gdb) b function(int)
692
693 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
694 C++ anonymous namespaces:
695
696 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
697 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
698 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
699 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
700
701 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
702 completion support, that better understands what you're
703 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
704 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
705 setting a breakpoint.
706
707 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
708
709 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
710
711 * New command line options (gcore)
712
713 -a
714 Dump all memory mappings.
715
716 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
717
718 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
719 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
720 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
721
722 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
723
724 A::B::func()
725 B::func()
726
727 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
728 on both symbols.
729
730 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
731 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
732 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
733 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
734 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
735 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
736 a breakpoint from Python.
737
738 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
739
740 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
741 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
742 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
743
744 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
745
746 function[abi:cxx11](int)
747 ^^^^^^^^^^^
748
749 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
750 no tag, like:
751
752 (gdb) b function(int)
753
754 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
755
756 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
757
758 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
759
760 * Python Scripting
761
762 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
763 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
764 description of these.
765
766 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
767 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
768 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
769
770 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
771 manual for a further description of this feature.
772
773
774 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
775
776 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
777 specified initial working directory.
778
779 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
780 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
781
782 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
783 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
784
785 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
786 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
787
788 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
789 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
790 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
791 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
792 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
793
794 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
795 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
796 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
797
798 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
799 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
800 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
801 in the *stopped notification.
802
803 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
804 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
805
806 * New remote packets
807
808 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
809 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
810 the inferior when starting it.
811
812 QEnvironmentUnset
813 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
814 before starting the remote inferior.
815
816 QEnvironmentReset
817 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
818 user-set environment variables should be unset).
819
820 QStartupWithShell
821 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
822
823 QSetWorkingDir
824 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
825 working directory.
826
827 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
828 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
829
830 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
831 filter the tests to be run.
832
833 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
834 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
835
836 * New commands
837
838 set|show cwd
839 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
840
841 set|show compile-gcc
842 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
843 with the 'compile' commands.
844
845 set debug separate-debug-file
846 show debug separate-debug-file
847 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
848
849 set dump-excluded-mappings
850 show dump-excluded-mappings
851 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
852 dumped when generating a core file.
853
854 maint info selftests
855 List the registered selftests.
856
857 starti
858 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
859
860 set|show debug or1k
861 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
862
863 set|show print type nested-type-limit
864 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
865 type printer will show.
866
867 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
868 `o' for nexti.
869
870 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
871
872 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
873 'int'.
874
875 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
876 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
877 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
878 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
879
880 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
881 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
882 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
883 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
884 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
885 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
886
887 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
888 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
889 unless you tell it the variable's type:
890
891 (gdb) p var
892 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
893 (gdb) p (float) var
894 $3 = 3.14
895
896 * New native configurations
897
898 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
899 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
900
901 * New targets
902
903 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
904 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
905 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
906
907 * Removed targets and native configurations
908
909 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
910
911 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
912
913 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
914 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
915 available in future Intel CPUs.
916
917 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
918
919 * Python Scripting
920
921 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
922 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
923
924 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
925 instructions.
926
927 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
928
929 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
930
931 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
932 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
933 removed.
934
935 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
936
937 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
938 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
939
940 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
941
942 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
943 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
944 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
945 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
946 features.
947
948 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
949
950 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
951 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
952 debugger.
953
954 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
955
956 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
957 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
958
959 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
960
961 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
962
963 define mycommand
964 set $i = 0
965 while $i < $argc
966 eval "print $arg%d", $i
967 set $i = $i + 1
968 end
969 end
970
971 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
972
973 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
974 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
975
976 * New native configurations
977
978 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
979
980 * New targets
981
982 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
983 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
984
985 * Removed targets and native configurations
986
987 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
988 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
989
990 * New commands
991
992 flash-erase
993 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
994
995 maint print arc arc-instruction address
996 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
997
998 * New options
999
1000 set disassembler-options
1001 show disassembler-options
1002 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1003 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1004 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1005 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1006 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1007
1008 * New MI commands
1009
1010 -target-flash-erase
1011 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1012 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1013
1014 -file-list-shared-libraries
1015 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1016 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1017
1018 -catch-handlers
1019 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1020 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1021
1022 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1023
1024 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1025
1026 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1027 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1028 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1029 option will be removed in a future release.
1030
1031 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1032 GDB connection.
1033
1034 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1035 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1036
1037 (gdb) bt
1038 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1039 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1040 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1041 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1042 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1043 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1044 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1045 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1046 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1047
1048 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1049 arrays of dynamic types.
1050
1051 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1052 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1053 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1054 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1055 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1056 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1057
1058 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1059 descriptions.
1060
1061 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1062 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1063 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1064
1065 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1066
1067 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1068 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1069 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1070 signal received and code location.
1071
1072 For example:
1073
1074 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1075 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1076 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1077 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1078
1079 * Rust language support.
1080 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1081 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1082 Rust.
1083
1084 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1085
1086 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1087 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1088 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1089 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1090 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1091 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1092 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1093 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1094 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1095 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1096 line.
1097
1098 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1099
1100 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1101 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1102
1103 * New commands
1104
1105 skip -file file
1106 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1107 skip -function function
1108 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1109 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1110 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1111 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1112
1113 maint info line-table REGEXP
1114 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
1115
1116 maint selftest
1117 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1118
1119 new-ui INTERP TTY
1120 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1121 using the TTY file for input/output.
1122
1123 * Python Scripting
1124
1125 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1126 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1127 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1128 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1129 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1130
1131 signal-event EVENTID
1132 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1133 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1134 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1135 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1136 signalling an event.
1137
1138 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1139 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1140 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1141
1142 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1143 been removed:
1144
1145 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1146 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1147 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1148 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1149 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1150 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1151
1152 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1153 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1154 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1155 bytecode into native code.
1156
1157 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1158 recording. For example:
1159
1160 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1161
1162 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1163
1164 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1165
1166 * New targets
1167
1168 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1169
1170 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1171
1172 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1173
1174 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1175
1176 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1177 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1178 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1179
1180 (gdb) info threads
1181 Id Target Id Frame
1182 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1183 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1184 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1185 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1186
1187 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1188 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1189 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1190
1191 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1192 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1193 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1194
1195 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1196 IDs.
1197
1198 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1199 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1200
1201 (gdb) thread 2.1
1202 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1203 (gdb)
1204
1205 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1206 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1207 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1208 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1209 threads 2.*".
1210
1211 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1212 all threads.
1213
1214 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1215 the current thread.
1216
1217 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1218 current inferior.
1219
1220 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1221 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1222 example:
1223
1224 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1225 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1226
1227 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1228
1229 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1230
1231 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1232 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1233
1234 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1235 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1236 clients.
1237
1238 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1239 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1240 at the same time.
1241
1242 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1243 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1244 into native code.
1245
1246 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1247
1248 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1249 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1250 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1251
1252 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1253 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1254
1255 * New commands
1256
1257 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1258 maint show target-non-stop
1259 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1260 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1261 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1262
1263 maint set bfd-sharing
1264 maint show bfd-sharing
1265 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1266
1267 set debug bfd-cache
1268 show debug bfd-cache
1269 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1270
1271 set debug fbsd-lwp
1272 show debug fbsd-lwp
1273 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1274
1275 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1276 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1277 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1278
1279 set remote thread-events
1280 show remote thread-events
1281 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1282
1283 set ada print-signatures on|off
1284 show ada print-signatures"
1285 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1286 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1287
1288 set max-value-size
1289 show max-value-size
1290 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1291 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1292 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1293
1294 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1295 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1296 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1297 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1298 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1299 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1300
1301 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1302 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1303
1304 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1305 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1306
1307 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1308
1309 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1310 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1311 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1312 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1313 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1314 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1315
1316 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1317 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1318
1319 catch handlers
1320 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1321
1322 * New remote packets
1323
1324 exec stop reason
1325 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1326
1327 exec-events feature in qSupported
1328 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1329 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1330 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1331 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1332
1333 vCtrlC
1334 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1335 non-stop mode.
1336
1337 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1338 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1339
1340 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1341 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1342
1343 QThreadEvents
1344 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1345 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1346 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1347 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1348 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1349 stop for that same thread.
1350
1351 N stop reply
1352 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1353 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1354 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1355
1356 QCatchSyscalls
1357 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1358 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1359
1360 syscall_entry stop reason
1361 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1362
1363 syscall_return stop reason
1364 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1365
1366 * Extended-remote exec events
1367
1368 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1369 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1370 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1371
1372 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1373 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1374 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1375
1376 * Thread names in remote protocol
1377
1378 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1379 thread.
1380
1381 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1382
1383 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1384 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1385 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1386 fork and exec catchpoints.
1387
1388 * Remote syscall events
1389
1390 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1391 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1392
1393 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1394 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1395 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1396
1397 * MI changes
1398
1399 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1400 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1401 left.
1402
1403 * Python Scripting
1404
1405 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1406 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1407 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1408 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1409 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1410 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1411
1412 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1413
1414 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1415 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1416 including advance SIMD instructions.
1417
1418 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1419
1420 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1421 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1422 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1423 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1424 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1425 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1426 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1427
1428 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1429 cpu information :
1430 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1431
1432 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1433 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1434 remote serial I/O.
1435
1436 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1437 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1438 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1439
1440 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1441 is now available on all platforms.
1442
1443 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1444 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1445 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1446 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1447 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1448 backward compatibility.
1449
1450 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1451 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1452 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1453 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1454
1455 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1456 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1457 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1458 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1459 packets" below.
1460
1461 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1462
1463 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1464
1465 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1466 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1467 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1468 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1469 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1470 See "New remote packets" below.
1471
1472 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1473 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1474
1475 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1476 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1477 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1478 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1479 are ignored.
1480
1481 * Guile Scripting
1482
1483 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1484
1485 * Python Scripting
1486
1487 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1488 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1489 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1490 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1491 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1492 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1493 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1494 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1495 "const" version of the value respectively.
1496
1497 * New commands
1498
1499 maint print symbol-cache
1500 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1501
1502 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1503 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1504
1505 maint flush-symbol-cache
1506 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1507
1508 record btrace bts
1509 record bts
1510 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1511
1512 compile print
1513 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1514
1515 tui enable
1516 tui disable
1517 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1518
1519 show mpx bound
1520 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1521 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1522
1523 record btrace pt
1524 record pt
1525 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1526
1527 maint info btrace
1528 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1529
1530 maint btrace packet-history
1531 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1532
1533 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1534 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1535
1536 maint btrace clear
1537 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1538 anew by the next "record" command.
1539
1540 * New options
1541
1542 set debug dwarf-die
1543 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1544 show debug dwarf-die
1545 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1546
1547 set debug dwarf-read
1548 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1549 show debug dwarf-read
1550 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1551
1552 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1553 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1554 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1555 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1556
1557 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1558 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1559 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1560 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1561
1562 set debug dwarf-line
1563 show debug dwarf-line
1564 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1565
1566 set max-completions
1567 show max-completions
1568 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1569 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1570 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1571 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1572
1573 set history remove-duplicates
1574 show history remove-duplicates
1575 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1576
1577 maint set symbol-cache-size
1578 maint show symbol-cache-size
1579 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1580
1581 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1582 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1583 BTS format.
1584 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1585 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1586
1587 set debug linux-namespaces
1588 show debug linux-namespaces
1589 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1590
1591 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1592 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1593 Intel Processor Trace format.
1594 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1595 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1596
1597 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1598 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1599 packet history.
1600
1601 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1602 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1603
1604 * Python/Guile scripting
1605
1606 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1607 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1608
1609 * New remote packets
1610
1611 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1612 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1613
1614 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1615 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1616
1617 Qbtrace:pt
1618 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1619 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1620 qSupported query.
1621
1622 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1623 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1624 Trace format.
1625
1626 swbreak stop reason
1627 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1628 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1629 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1630 mode operation.
1631
1632 hwbreak stop reason
1633 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1634 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1635
1636 vFile:fstat:
1637 Return information about files on the remote system.
1638
1639 qXfer:exec-file:read
1640 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1641 create a process running on the remote system.
1642
1643 vFile:setfs:
1644 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1645 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1646 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1647 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1648
1649 fork stop reason
1650 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1651
1652 vfork stop reason
1653 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1654
1655 vforkdone stop reason
1656 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1657 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1658
1659 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1660 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1661 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1662 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1663 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1664 whether these features are enabled.
1665
1666 * Extended-remote fork events
1667
1668 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1669 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1670 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1671 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1672
1673 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1674 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1675 the btrace record target.
1676 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1677
1678 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1679 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1680
1681 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1682 targets.
1683
1684 * Removed command line options
1685
1686 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1687
1688 * Removed targets and native configurations
1689
1690 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1691 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1692
1693 * New configure options
1694
1695 --with-intel-pt
1696 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1697 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1698
1699 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1700 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1701 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1702 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1703
1704 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1705
1706 * Python Scripting
1707
1708 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1709
1710 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1711
1712 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1713
1714 * Python Scripting
1715
1716 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1717 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1718 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1719 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1720 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1721 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1722 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1723 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1724 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1725 selecting a new file to debug.
1726 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1727 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1728
1729 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1730 inferior.
1731
1732 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1733 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1734 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1735 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1736
1737 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1738
1739 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1740 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1741 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1742 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1743
1744 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1745 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1746 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1747 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1748 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1749 interface with this new feature are:
1750
1751 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1752 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1753
1754 * New commands
1755
1756 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1757 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1758 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1759 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1760 as "maint demangler-warning".
1761
1762 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1763 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1764
1765 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1766 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1767 scripts.
1768
1769 maint print user-registers
1770 List all currently available "user" registers.
1771
1772 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1773 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1774 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1775
1776 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1777 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1778 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1779 provided.
1780
1781 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1782 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1783 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1784 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1785 at resume time.
1786
1787 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1788 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1789 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1790 switched threads meanwhile.
1791
1792 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1793
1794 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1795 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1796 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1797 is now the default mode.
1798
1799 * New options
1800
1801 set debug symbol-lookup
1802 show debug symbol-lookup
1803 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1804
1805 * MI changes
1806
1807 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1808 inferiors that have exited.
1809
1810 * New targets
1811
1812 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1813
1814 * Removed targets
1815
1816 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1817
1818 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1819 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1820 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1821 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1822 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1823
1824 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1825 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1826 its alias "share", instead.
1827
1828 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1829
1830 * New command line options
1831
1832 -D data-directory
1833 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1834
1835 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1836 as specified in ISO C99.
1837
1838 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1839 with or without disassembly.
1840
1841 * Guile scripting
1842
1843 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1844 available is determined at configure time.
1845 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1846 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1847
1848 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1849
1850 guile [code]
1851 gu [code]
1852 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1853
1854 guile-repl
1855 gr
1856 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1857
1858 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1859 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1860
1861 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1862 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1863
1864 * New options
1865
1866 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1867 show print symbol-loading
1868 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1869 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1870 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1871 becomes less useful.
1872
1873 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1874 show guile print-stack
1875 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1876
1877 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1878 show auto-load guile-scripts
1879 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1880
1881 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1882 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1883 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1884 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1885 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1886 usage of this option.
1887
1888 set auto-connect-native-target
1889
1890 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1891 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1892 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1893
1894 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1895 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1896 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1897
1898 maint set target-async (on|off)
1899 maint show target-async
1900 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1901 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1902 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1903 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1904
1905 set mi-async (on|off)
1906 show mi-async
1907 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1908 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1909
1910 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1911 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1912
1913 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1914 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1915 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1916 "set target-async on" command.
1917
1918 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1919
1920 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1921 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1922 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1923 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1924 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1925
1926 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1927 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1928 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1929
1930 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1931 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1932 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1933 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1934 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1935 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1936 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1937
1938 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1939 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1940
1941 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1942 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1943 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1944
1945 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1946 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1947 memory or registers.
1948
1949 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1950
1951 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1952 remote. It now works with all targets.
1953
1954 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1955 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1956 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1957 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1958 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1959 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1960 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1961 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1962 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1963 target-stack".
1964
1965 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1966 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1967 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1968
1969 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1970
1971 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1972 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1973 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1974
1975 * New remote packets
1976
1977 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1978 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1979 branch trace incrementally.
1980
1981 * Python Scripting
1982
1983 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1984 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1985 available.
1986 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1987 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1988 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1989 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1990 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1991
1992 * New targets
1993 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1994
1995 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1996 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1997 its alias "share", instead.
1998
1999 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2000 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2001 instead.
2002
2003 * MI changes
2004
2005 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2006 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2007 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2008 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2009 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2010 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2011 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2012 commands and CLI execution commands.
2013
2014 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2015
2016 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2017 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2018 recording has been added.
2019
2020 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2021
2022 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2023 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2024
2025 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2026 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2027 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2028 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2029 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2030 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2031 "void".
2032
2033 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2034
2035 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2036
2037 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2038 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2039 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2040 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2041
2042 (gdb) p $rax
2043 $1 = <not saved>
2044
2045 (gdb) info registers rax
2046 rax <not saved>
2047
2048 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2049 "*value not available*".
2050
2051 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2052 to binaries.
2053
2054 * Python scripting
2055
2056 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2057 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2058 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2059 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2060 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2061 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2062
2063 * New targets
2064
2065 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2066 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2067 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2068
2069 * Removed native configurations
2070
2071 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2072 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2073
2074 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2075 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2076 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2077 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2078 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2079 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2080 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2081
2082 * New commands:
2083 catch rethrow
2084 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2085 maint check-psymtabs
2086 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2087 maint check-symtabs
2088 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2089 maint expand-symtabs
2090 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2091
2092 show configuration
2093 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2094
2095 maint set|show per-command
2096 maint set|show per-command space
2097 maint set|show per-command time
2098 maint set|show per-command symtab
2099 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2100
2101 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2102 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2103 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2104 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2105 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2106
2107 info exceptions
2108 info exceptions REGEXP
2109 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2110 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2111 are listed.
2112
2113 * New options
2114
2115 set debug symfile off|on
2116 show debug symfile
2117 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2118 symbol tables within those files
2119
2120 set print raw frame-arguments
2121 show print raw frame-arguments
2122 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2123 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2124
2125 set remote trace-status-packet
2126 show remote trace-status-packet
2127 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2128
2129 set debug nios2
2130 show debug nios2
2131 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2132
2133 set range-stepping
2134 show range-stepping
2135 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2136
2137 set startup-with-shell
2138 show startup-with-shell
2139 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2140 directly.
2141
2142 set code-cache
2143 show code-cache
2144 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2145 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2146
2147 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2148 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2149 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2150 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2151 "set height 0".
2152
2153 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2154 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2155 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2156
2157 * New command-line options
2158 --configuration
2159 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2160
2161 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2162 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2163
2164 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2165 GDB command gcore.
2166
2167 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2168
2169 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2170 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2171
2172 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2173 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2174
2175 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2176 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2177 due to an uncaught signal.
2178
2179 * MI changes
2180
2181 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2182 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2183 command, which should contain "language-option".
2184
2185 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2186 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2187
2188 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2189 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2190 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2191 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2192 "undefined-command-error-code".
2193
2194 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2195 Trace Format now.
2196
2197 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2198
2199 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2200 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2201 are displayed.
2202
2203 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2204 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2205
2206 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2207 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2208 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2209
2210 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2211 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2212 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2213 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2214 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2215 "exec-run-start-option".
2216
2217 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2218 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2219
2220 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2221 the new "info exceptions" command.
2222
2223 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2224 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2225 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2226 ** ElinOS
2227 ** Wind River Linux
2228
2229 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2230 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2231 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2232 below.
2233
2234 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2235 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2236
2237 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2238 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2239 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2240
2241 * New remote packets
2242
2243 vCont;r
2244
2245 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2246 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2247 involvemement at each single-step.
2248
2249 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2250 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2251 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2252 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2253 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2254 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2255 speedup.
2256
2257 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2258
2259 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2260 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2261
2262 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2263 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2264 trace state variables.
2265
2266 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2267 target.
2268
2269 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2270 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2271
2272 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2273
2274 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2275 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2276 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2277 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2278
2279 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2280
2281 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2282 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2283 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2284 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2285
2286 set|show record full insn-number-max
2287 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2288 set|show record full memory-query
2289
2290 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2291 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2292 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2293 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2294 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2295
2296 record btrace
2297
2298 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2299 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2300
2301 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2302 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2303 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2304
2305 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2306 instruction granularity
2307
2308 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2309 function granularity
2310
2311 * New native configurations
2312
2313 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2314 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2315 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2316 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2317
2318 * New targets
2319
2320 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2321 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2322 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2323 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2324 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2325
2326 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2327 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2328 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2329 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2330 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2331 --data-directory command-line option.
2332
2333 * New command line options:
2334
2335 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2336 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2337
2338 * Removed command line options
2339
2340 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2341 Emacs.
2342
2343 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2344 type formatting.
2345
2346 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2347
2348 * Python scripting
2349
2350 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2351
2352 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2353
2354 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2355
2356 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2357
2358 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2359 of architecture in the Python API.
2360
2361 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2362 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2363
2364 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2365
2366 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2367 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2368 ** $_strlen(str)
2369 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2370
2371 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2372 given an argument.
2373
2374 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2375 default for GCC since November 2000.
2376
2377 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2378
2379 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2380 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2381
2382 * New configure options
2383
2384 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2385 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2386 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2387 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2388 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2389 options allow the user to override that default.
2390 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2391 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2392 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2393
2394 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2395
2396 catch signal
2397 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2398 conditions to be attached.
2399
2400 maint info bfds
2401 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2402
2403 python-interactive [command]
2404 pi [command]
2405 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2406 and print the result of expressions.
2407
2408 py [command]
2409 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2410
2411 enable type-printer [name]...
2412 disable type-printer [name]...
2413 Enable or disable type printers.
2414
2415 * Removed commands
2416
2417 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2418 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2419 instead.
2420
2421 * New options
2422
2423 set print type methods (on|off)
2424 show print type methods
2425 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2426 The default is to show them.
2427
2428 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2429 show print type typedefs
2430 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2431 The default is to show them.
2432
2433 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2434 show filename-display
2435 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2436 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2437
2438 set trace-buffer-size
2439 show trace-buffer-size
2440 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2441
2442 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2443 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2444 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2445
2446 set debug aarch64
2447 show debug aarch64
2448 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2449 The default is off.
2450
2451 set debug coff-pe-read
2452 show debug coff-pe-read
2453 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2454 exported symbols.
2455
2456 set debug mach-o
2457 show debug mach-o
2458 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2459 processing.
2460
2461 set debug notification
2462 show debug notification
2463 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2464
2465 * MI changes
2466
2467 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2468 "=cmd-param-changed".
2469 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2470 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2471 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2472 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2473 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2474 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2475 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2476 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2477 "=memory-changed".
2478 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2479 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2480 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2481 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2482 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2483 library load/unload events.
2484 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2485 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2486 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2487 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2488 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2489 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2490 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2491 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2492
2493 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2494 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2495 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2496 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2497
2498 * New remote packets
2499
2500 QTBuffer:size
2501 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2502 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2503
2504 Qbtrace:bts
2505 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2506 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2507 qSupported query.
2508
2509 Qbtrace:off
2510 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2511 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2512
2513 qXfer:btrace:read
2514 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2515 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2516
2517 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2518
2519 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2520 for more x32 ABI info.
2521
2522 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2523
2524 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2525
2526 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2527 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2528 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2529 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2530 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2531 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2532 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2533 "info os msg" lists message queues
2534 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2535
2536 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2537 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2538 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2539 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2540 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2541 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2542
2543 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2544 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2545 record/replay support.
2546
2547 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2548
2549 * Python scripting
2550
2551 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2552 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
2553
2554 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2555
2556 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2557 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2558
2559 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2560
2561 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2562 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2563
2564 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2565 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2566 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2567 symbol's value.
2568
2569 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2570 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2571
2572 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2573 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2574 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2575
2576 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2577 object associated with a PC value.
2578
2579 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2580 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2581
2582 * Go language support.
2583 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2584 language.
2585
2586 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2587 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2588
2589 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2590 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2591
2592 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2593 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2594 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2595 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2596 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2597 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2598
2599 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2600 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2601 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2602 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2603
2604 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2605 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2606
2607 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2608 since December 2007.
2609
2610 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2611 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2612 command does. For instance:
2613
2614 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2615
2616 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2617 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2618 created, using the "condition" command.
2619
2620 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2621 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2622
2623 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2624
2625 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2626 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2627 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2628 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2629 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2630 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2631 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2632 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2633
2634 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2635 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2636 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2637 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2638 the .gdb_index section.
2639
2640 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2641
2642 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2643 target.
2644
2645 * MI changes
2646
2647 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2648
2649 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2650
2651 * New commands
2652
2653 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2654 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2655 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2656
2657 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2658 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2659
2660 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2661 several hits.
2662
2663 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2664 C++ and Java objects.
2665
2666 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2667 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2668 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2669 configured with '--with-python'.
2670
2671 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2672 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2673 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2674 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2675 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2676 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2677 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2678
2679 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2680 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2681 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2682 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2683
2684 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2685 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2686 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2687 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2688
2689 ** "set print symbol"
2690 "show print symbol"
2691 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2692 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2693 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2694
2695 * Deprecated commands
2696
2697 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2698 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2699
2700 * New targets
2701
2702 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2703 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2704
2705 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2706 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2707 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2708 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2709 evaluates to true.
2710
2711 * New options
2712
2713 set mips compression
2714 show mips compression
2715 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2716 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2717 mips16
2718 micromips
2719 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2720
2721 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2722 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2723 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2724 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2725 available mode.
2726 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2727 target.
2728
2729 set auto-load off
2730 Disable auto-loading globally.
2731
2732 show auto-load
2733 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2734
2735 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2736 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2737 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2738
2739 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2740 show auto-load python-scripts
2741 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2742
2743 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2744 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2745 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2746
2747 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2748 show auto-load libthread-db
2749 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2750
2751 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2752 show auto-load scripts-directory
2753 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2754 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2755 of the directories listed by this option.
2756 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2757
2758 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2759 show auto-load safe-path
2760 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2761 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2762
2763 set debug auto-load on|off
2764 show debug auto-load
2765 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2766
2767 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2768 show dprintf-style
2769 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2770 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2771 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2772 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2773
2774 set dprintf-function <expr>
2775 show dprintf-function
2776 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2777 show dprintf-channel
2778 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2779 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2780
2781 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2782 show disconnected-dprintf
2783 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2784 after GDB disconnects.
2785
2786 * New configure options
2787
2788 --with-auto-load-dir
2789 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2790 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2791 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2792 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2793 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2794
2795 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2796 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2797 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2798
2799 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2800 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2801 security feature.
2802
2803 * New remote packets
2804
2805 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2806
2807 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2808 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2809 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2810 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2811
2812 QProgramSignals:
2813
2814 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2815 program without GDB involvement.
2816
2817 * New command line options
2818
2819 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2820 before loading inferior.
2821 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2822 execute it before loading inferior.
2823
2824 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2825
2826 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2827 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2828 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2829 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2830 inferior changes.
2831
2832 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2833 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2834
2835 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2836 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2837 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2838 target hardware watchpoint.
2839
2840 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2841 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2842 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2843 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2844
2845 * Python scripting
2846
2847 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2848 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2849 existing one.
2850
2851 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2852 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2853 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2854 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2855 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2856 the stack trace.
2857
2858 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2859 Python API.
2860
2861 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2862 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2863 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2864 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2865 corresponding value.
2866
2867 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2868 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2869 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2870 on GDB start-up.
2871
2872 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2873 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2874 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2875 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2876
2877 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2878
2879 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2880 "gdb.breakpoints".
2881
2882 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2883 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2884 available in the CLI.
2885
2886 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2887 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2888 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2889 "some_type.items()".
2890
2891 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2892 new object file.
2893
2894 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2895 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2896 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2897 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2898 any anonymous fields.
2899
2900 * MI changes
2901
2902 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2903 "solib-event".
2904
2905 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2906 "=breakpoint-modified".
2907
2908 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2909
2910 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2911 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2912 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2913 lives.
2914
2915 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2916 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2917 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2918 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2919 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2920
2921 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2922 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2923
2924 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2925 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2926 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2927 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2928 use this option to specify where to find it.
2929
2930 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2931 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2932 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2933 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2934 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2935 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2936 section in the user manual for more details.
2937
2938 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2939 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2940 become available after that.
2941
2942 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2943
2944 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2945 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2946 gcc version 4.7.
2947
2948 * New commands
2949
2950 !SHELL COMMAND
2951 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2952 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2953
2954 * Changed commands
2955
2956 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2957 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2958 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2959
2960 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2961 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2962 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2963
2964 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2965 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2966 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2967 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2968 name starts with a hyphen.
2969
2970 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2971 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2972 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2973 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2974 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2975 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2976 number of bytes that will be collected.
2977
2978 tstart [NOTES]
2979 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2980 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2981 setting the variable trace-notes.
2982
2983 tstop [NOTES]
2984 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2985 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2986 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2987 trace-stop-notes.
2988
2989 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2990 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2991 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2992 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2993 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2994 is running.
2995
2996 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2997 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2998 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2999
3000 * New options
3001
3002 set debug dwarf2-read
3003 show debug dwarf2-read
3004 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3005 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3006
3007 set debug symtab-create
3008 show debug symtab-create
3009 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3010 creation. The default is off.
3011
3012 set extended-prompt
3013 show extended-prompt
3014 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3015 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3016 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3017 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3018 prompt is displayed.
3019
3020 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3021 show print entry-values
3022 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3023 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3024 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3025
3026 set debug entry-values
3027 show debug entry-values
3028 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3029 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3030
3031 set basenames-may-differ
3032 show basenames-may-differ
3033 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3034 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3035 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3036 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3037 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3038 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3039 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3040 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3041
3042 set trace-user
3043 show trace-user
3044 set trace-notes
3045 show trace-notes
3046 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3047 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3048 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3049 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3050
3051 set trace-stop-notes
3052 show trace-stop-notes
3053 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3054 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3055 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3056 started by someone else.
3057
3058 * New remote packets
3059
3060 QTEnable
3061
3062 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3063
3064 QTDisable
3065
3066 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3067
3068 QTNotes
3069
3070 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3071
3072 qTP
3073
3074 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3075
3076 qTMinFTPILen
3077
3078 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3079 be placed.
3080
3081 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3082 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3083
3084 * New targets
3085
3086 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3087
3088 * New Simulators
3089
3090 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3091
3092 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3093
3094 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3095
3096 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3097
3098 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3099 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3100 matches the given regular expression.
3101
3102 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3103
3104 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3105 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3106
3107 * New command line options
3108
3109 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3110 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3111
3112 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3113 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3114
3115 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3116 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3117 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3118
3119 * GDB now understands thread names.
3120
3121 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3122 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3123
3124 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3125 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3126
3127 * OpenCL C
3128 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3129 has been integrated into GDB.
3130
3131 * Python scripting
3132
3133 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3134 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3135 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3136
3137 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3138 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3139 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3140 and allows for more dynamic content.
3141
3142 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3143 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3144 have an is_valid method.
3145
3146 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3147 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3148 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3149
3150 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3151
3152 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3153 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3154 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3155 that function like so:
3156
3157 result = some_value (10,20)
3158
3159 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3160 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3161 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3162
3163 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3164 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3165 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3166 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3167 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3168
3169 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3170 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3171
3172 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3173
3174 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3175 selected thread.
3176
3177 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3178 holds the thread's name.
3179
3180 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3181 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3182 occurring in the process being debugged.
3183 The following events are currently supported:
3184 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3185 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3186 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3187
3188 * C++ Improvements:
3189
3190 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3191 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3192
3193 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3194
3195 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3196 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3197 was added to GCC 4.5.
3198
3199 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3200 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3201 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3202 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3203 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3204 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3205
3206 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3207 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3208 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3209 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3210 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3211
3212 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3213 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3214 execution to a label.
3215
3216 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3217 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3218 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3219 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3220
3221 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3222 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3223 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3224 of scope.
3225
3226 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3227
3228 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3229 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3230 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3231 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3232 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3233 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3234
3235 (gdb) info threads
3236 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3237
3238 While now you see this:
3239
3240 (gdb) info threads
3241 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3242
3243 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3244 dumps.
3245
3246 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3247 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3248 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3249 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3250
3251 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3252 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3253 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3254 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3255 section in the user manual for more details.
3256
3257 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3258
3259 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3260 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3261
3262 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3263
3264 * New native configurations
3265
3266 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3267
3268 * New targets:
3269
3270 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3271
3272 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3273 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3274 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3275 in the GDB user manual.
3276
3277 * Guile support was removed.
3278
3279 * New features in the GNU simulator
3280
3281 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3282
3283 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3284
3285 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3286
3287 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3288
3289 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3290 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3291 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3292 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3293 was always disabled for such configurations.
3294
3295 * C++ Improvements:
3296
3297 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3298
3299 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3300 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3301 For example:
3302 namespace A
3303 {
3304 class B { };
3305 void foo (B) { }
3306 }
3307 ...
3308 A::B b
3309 foo(b)
3310 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3311 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3312 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3313
3314 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3315
3316 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3317 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3318 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3319 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3320 entry.
3321 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3322 mentioned flavors of operators.
3323
3324 ** static const class members
3325
3326 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3327 class definition has been fixed.
3328
3329 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3330
3331 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3332 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3333 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3334 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3335 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3336 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3337
3338 * Static tracepoints
3339
3340 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3341 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3342 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3343 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3344 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3345 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3346 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3347 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3348 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3349 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3350 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3351 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3352 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3353 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3354 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3355 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3356 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3357 the "New remote packets" section below.
3358
3359 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3360
3361 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3362 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3363 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3364 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3365
3366 * Observer mode
3367
3368 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3369 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3370 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3371 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3372 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3373 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3374 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3375
3376 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3377 current thread.
3378
3379 * New remote packets
3380
3381 qGetTIBAddr
3382
3383 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3384
3385 qRelocInsn
3386
3387 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3388 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3389 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3390 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3391 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3392 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3393
3394 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
3395
3396 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3397
3398 qTSTMat
3399
3400 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3401 program.
3402
3403 qXfer:statictrace:read
3404
3405 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3406 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3407 to gdb's qSupported query.
3408
3409 QAllow
3410
3411 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3412
3413 QTDPsrc
3414
3415 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3416 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3417
3418 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3419 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3420 a directory.
3421
3422 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3423
3424 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3425 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3426 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3427 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3428
3429 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3430 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3431 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3432 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3433 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3434 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3435 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3436
3437 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3438 for static tracepoints support.
3439
3440 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3441
3442 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3443 it understands register description.
3444
3445 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3446
3447 * X86 general purpose registers
3448
3449 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3450 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3451 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3452 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3453 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3454
3455 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3456 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3457 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3458 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3459 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3460 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3461
3462 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3463 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3464 in the specified file.
3465
3466 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3467 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3468 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3469 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3470 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3471 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3472 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3473 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3474 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3475 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3476
3477 * New commands
3478
3479 eval template, expressions...
3480 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3481 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3482
3483 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3484 show target-file-system-kind
3485 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3486 names.
3487
3488 save breakpoints <filename>
3489 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3490 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3491 definitions, use the `source' command.
3492
3493 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3494 is now deprecated.
3495
3496 info static-tracepoint-markers
3497 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3498
3499 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3500 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3501 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3502
3503 set observer on|off
3504 show observer
3505 Enable and disable observer mode.
3506
3507 set may-write-registers on|off
3508 set may-write-memory on|off
3509 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3510 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3511 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3512 set may-interrupt on|off
3513 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3514 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3515 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3516 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3517 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3518 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3519 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3520
3521 set record memory-query on|off
3522 show record memory-query
3523 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3524 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3525
3526 * Changed commands
3527
3528 disassemble
3529 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3530
3531 * Python scripting
3532
3533 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3534 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3535 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3536 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3537 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3538
3539 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3540 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3541 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3542 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3543
3544 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3545 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3546
3547 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3548
3549 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3550
3551 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3552
3553 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3554 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3555 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3556
3557 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3558 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3559 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3560 regular breakpoints.
3561
3562 * New targets
3563
3564 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3565
3566 * D language support.
3567 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3568 language.
3569
3570 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3571 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3572 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3573 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3574 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3575
3576 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3577 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3578 conditions of the form:
3579
3580 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3581
3582 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3583 interface mentioned above.
3584
3585 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3586
3587 * C++ Improvements
3588
3589 ** Namespace Support
3590
3591 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3592 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3593 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3594 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3595 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3596
3597 ** Bug Fixes
3598
3599 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3600 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3601 qualified name.
3602
3603 ** Cast Operators
3604
3605 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3606 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3607
3608 * New targets
3609
3610 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3611 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
3612
3613 * New Simulators
3614
3615 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3616 Renesas RX rx
3617
3618 * Multi-program debugging.
3619
3620 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3621 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3622 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3623 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3624 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3625 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3626 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3627 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3628
3629 * New tracing features
3630
3631 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3632
3633 ** Trace state variables
3634
3635 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3636 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3637 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3638 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3639 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3640 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3641 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3642 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3643 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3644 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3645
3646 ** Fast tracepoints
3647
3648 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3649 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3650 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3651 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3652 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3653 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3654 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3655 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3656 the regular trace command.
3657
3658 ** Disconnected tracing
3659
3660 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3661 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3662 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3663 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3664 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3665
3666 ** Trace files
3667
3668 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3669 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3670 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3671 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3672 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3673 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3674 <name>".
3675
3676 ** Circular trace buffer
3677
3678 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3679 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3680 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3681 not be available for all target agents.
3682
3683 * Changed commands
3684
3685 disassemble
3686 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3687 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3688
3689 info variables
3690 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3691 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3692
3693 source
3694 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3695 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3696 support.
3697
3698 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3699 "set script-extension" (see below).
3700
3701 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3702
3703 record save [<FILENAME>]
3704 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3705 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3706
3707 record restore <FILENAME>
3708 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3709 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3710
3711 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3712 Add a new inferior.
3713
3714 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3715 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3716 inferior has loaded.
3717
3718 remove-inferior ID
3719 Remove an inferior.
3720
3721 maint info program-spaces
3722 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3723
3724 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3725 show remote interrupt-sequence
3726 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3727 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3728 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3729 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3730 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3731
3732 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3733 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3734 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3735 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3736 Linux kernel.
3737
3738 set remotebreak [on | off]
3739 show remotebreak
3740 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3741
3742 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3743 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3744
3745 info tvariables
3746 List trace state variables and their values.
3747
3748 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3749 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3750
3751 teval EXPR, ...
3752 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3753 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3754
3755 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3756 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3757
3758 * New expression syntax
3759
3760 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3761 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3762
3763 * New options
3764
3765 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3766 show follow-exec-mode
3767 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3768 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3769 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3770
3771 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3772 show default-collect
3773 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3774 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3775 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3776
3777 set disconnected-tracing
3778 show disconnected-tracing
3779 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3780 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3781 upon disconnection.
3782
3783 set circular-trace-buffer
3784 show circular-trace-buffer
3785 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3786 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3787 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3788 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3789
3790 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3791 show script-extension
3792 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3793 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3794 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3795 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3796 evaluation failed.
3797 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3798
3799 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3800 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3801 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3802 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3803 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3804 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3805 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3806 is on.
3807
3808 * Python API Improvements
3809
3810 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3811 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3812 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3813
3814 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3815 `is_base_class' attribute.
3816
3817 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3818
3819 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3820 evaluate an expression.
3821
3822 * New remote packets
3823
3824 QTDV
3825 Define a trace state variable.
3826
3827 qTV
3828 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3829
3830 QTDisconnected
3831 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3832
3833 QTBuffer:circular
3834 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3835
3836 qTfP, qTsP
3837 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3838
3839 * Bug fixes
3840
3841 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3842
3843 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3844 much more reliable. In particular:
3845 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3846 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3847 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3848 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3849 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3850 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3851 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3852 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3853 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3854 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3855 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3856 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3857 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3858 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3859 non-threaded programs.
3860
3861 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3862 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3863 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3864 executable program.
3865
3866 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3867
3868 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3869 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3870 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3871 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3872 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3873
3874 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3875 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3876 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3877 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3878 for tracepoint actions.
3879
3880 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3881 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3882 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3883
3884 * Process record and replay
3885
3886 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3887 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3888 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3889 execute commands.
3890
3891 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3892 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3893 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3894 reverse execution.
3895
3896 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3897 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3898 2.6.28 or later.
3899
3900 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3901 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3902 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3903 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3904 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3905 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3906 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3907 the installation instructions for more information.
3908
3909 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3910 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3911 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3912 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3913
3914 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3915 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3916
3917 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3918 now complete on file names.
3919
3920 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3921 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3922 For instance, consider:
3923
3924 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3925 # struct example variable;
3926 (gdb) p variable.
3927
3928 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3929 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3930
3931 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3932 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3933
3934 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3935 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3936 macros.
3937
3938 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3939 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3940 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3941
3942 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3943 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3944 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3945 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3946
3947 * New remote packets
3948
3949 qSearch:memory:
3950 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3951
3952 QStartNoAckMode
3953 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3954 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3955 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3956
3957 vKill
3958 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3959 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3960
3961 qXfer:osdata:read
3962 Obtains additional operating system information
3963
3964 qXfer:siginfo:read
3965 qXfer:siginfo:write
3966 Read or write additional signal information.
3967
3968 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3969
3970 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3971 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3972 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3973
3974 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3975 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3976
3977 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3978 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3979 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3980
3981 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3982 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3983
3984 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3985
3986 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3987
3988 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3989 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3990
3991 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3992 list of section offsets.
3993
3994 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3995 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3996 have also been fixed.
3997
3998 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3999 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4000 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4001
4002 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4003 example, given:
4004
4005 template<typename T> class C { };
4006 C<char const *> c;
4007
4008 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4009
4010 ptype C<char const *>
4011 ptype C<char const*>
4012 ptype C<const char *>
4013 ptype C<const char*>
4014
4015 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4016
4017 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4018 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4019
4020 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4021 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4022 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4023
4024 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4025 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4026
4027 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4028 gdbserver.
4029
4030 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4031 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4032
4033 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4034 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4035 as appropriate.
4036
4037 * Python scripting
4038
4039 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4040 available is determined at configure time.
4041
4042 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4043
4044 * Ada tasking support
4045
4046 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4047 been introduced:
4048
4049 info tasks
4050 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4051 info task N
4052 Print detailed information about task number N.
4053 task
4054 Print the task number of the current task.
4055 task N
4056 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4057
4058 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4059 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4060
4061 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4062
4063 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4064 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4065 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4066 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4067 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4068 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4069 below.
4070
4071 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4072 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4073 information.
4074
4075 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4076 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4077 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4078 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4079 more information.
4080
4081 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4082
4083 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4084 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4085 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4086 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4087 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4088
4089 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4090 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4091 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4092 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4093 --enable-targets configure option.
4094
4095 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4096
4097 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4098 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4099 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4100 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4101 section in the user manual for more information.
4102
4103 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4104 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4105 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4106 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4107 extensions on linux targets.
4108
4109 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4110
4111 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4112 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4113 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4114 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4115 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4116 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4117 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4118 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4119 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4120
4121 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4122 val1 [, val2, ...]
4123 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4124
4125 maint set python print-stack
4126 maint show python print-stack
4127 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4128
4129 python [CODE]
4130 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4131
4132 macro define
4133 macro list
4134 macro undef
4135 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4136 interactively.
4137
4138 info os processes
4139 Show operating system information about processes.
4140
4141 info inferiors
4142 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4143
4144 inferior NUM
4145 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4146
4147 detach inferior NUM
4148 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4149
4150 kill inferior NUM
4151 Kill inferior number NUM.
4152
4153 * New options
4154
4155 set spu stop-on-load
4156 show spu stop-on-load
4157 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4158
4159 set spu auto-flush-cache
4160 show spu auto-flush-cache
4161 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4162 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4163
4164 set sh calling-convention
4165 show sh calling-convention
4166 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4167
4168 set debug timestamp
4169 show debug timestamp
4170 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4171
4172 set disassemble-next-line
4173 show disassemble-next-line
4174 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4175 the debuggee stops.
4176
4177 set remote noack-packet
4178 show remote noack-packet
4179 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4180 under "New remote packets."
4181
4182 set remote query-attached-packet
4183 show remote query-attached-packet
4184 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4185
4186 set remote read-siginfo-object
4187 show remote read-siginfo-object
4188 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4189 packet.
4190
4191 set remote write-siginfo-object
4192 show remote write-siginfo-object
4193 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4194 packet.
4195
4196 set remote reverse-continue
4197 show remote reverse-continue
4198 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4199
4200 set remote reverse-step
4201 show remote reverse-step
4202 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4203
4204 set displaced-stepping
4205 show displaced-stepping
4206 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4207 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4208 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4209
4210 set debug displaced
4211 show debug displaced
4212 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4213
4214 maint set internal-error
4215 maint show internal-error
4216 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4217
4218 maint set internal-warning
4219 maint show internal-warning
4220 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4221
4222 set exec-wrapper
4223 show exec-wrapper
4224 unset exec-wrapper
4225 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4226
4227 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4228 show multiple-symbols
4229 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4230 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4231 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4232
4233 set breakpoint always-inserted
4234 show breakpoint always-inserted
4235 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4236 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4237 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4238
4239 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4240 show arm fallback-mode
4241 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4242 show arm force-mode
4243 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4244 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4245 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4246 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4247
4248 set disable-randomization
4249 show disable-randomization
4250 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4251 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4252 multiple debugging sessions.
4253
4254 set non-stop
4255 show non-stop
4256 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4257 a breakpoint.
4258
4259 set target-async
4260 show target-async
4261 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4262 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4263 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4264 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4265
4266 set target-wide-charset
4267 show target-wide-charset
4268 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4269 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4270
4271 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4272 show tcp auto-retry
4273 set tcp connect-timeout
4274 show tcp connect-timeout
4275 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4276 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4277 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4278
4279 set libthread-db-search-path
4280 show libthread-db-search-path
4281 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4282 libthread_db.
4283
4284 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4285 show schedule-multiple
4286 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4287 the current process.
4288
4289 set stack-cache
4290 show stack-cache
4291 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4292 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4293 affecting correctness.
4294
4295 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4296 show interactive-mode
4297 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4298 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4299 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4300 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4301 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4302
4303 * Removed commands
4304
4305 info forks
4306 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4307 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4308 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4309 command.
4310
4311 fork NUM
4312 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4313 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4314 alias for the `fork' command.
4315
4316 process PID
4317 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4318 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4319 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4320
4321 delete fork NUM
4322 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4323 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4324 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4325 fork' command.
4326
4327 detach fork NUM
4328 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4329 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4330 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4331 fork' command.
4332
4333 * New native configurations
4334
4335 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4336
4337 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4338
4339 * New targets
4340
4341 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4342 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4343 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4344 S+core 3 score-*-*
4345
4346 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4347 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4348
4349 * Removed commands
4350
4351 catch load
4352 catch unload
4353 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4354
4355 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4356
4357 * New native configurations
4358
4359 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4360 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4361
4362 * New targets
4363
4364 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4365 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4366
4367 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4368
4369 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4370 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4371 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4372 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4373
4374 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4375 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4376
4377 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4378 is resolved.
4379
4380 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4381 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4382 and in inlined functions.
4383
4384 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4385 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4386 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4387
4388 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4389
4390 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4391 registers on PowerPC targets.
4392
4393 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4394 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4395
4396 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4397 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4398
4399 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4400 extended-remote mode.
4401
4402 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4403 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4404 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4405 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4406
4407 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4408 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4409 target architectures.
4410
4411 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4412 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4413 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4414 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4415
4416 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4417 breakpoints now.
4418
4419 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4420 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4421 include:
4422 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4423 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4424 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4425 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4426 of an assignment
4427 - Improved command completion in Ada
4428 - Several bug fixes
4429
4430 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4431 process.
4432
4433 * New commands
4434
4435 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4436 show print frame-arguments
4437 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4438 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4439
4440 remote put
4441 remote get
4442 remote delete
4443 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4444
4445 * New MI commands
4446
4447 -target-file-put
4448 -target-file-get
4449 -target-file-delete
4450 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4451
4452 * New remote packets
4453
4454 vFile:open:
4455 vFile:close:
4456 vFile:pread:
4457 vFile:pwrite:
4458 vFile:unlink:
4459 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4460
4461 vAttach
4462 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4463 mode.
4464
4465 vRun
4466 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4467
4468 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4469
4470 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4471 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4472 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4473
4474 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4475 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4476 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4477
4478 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4479 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4480 is not supported.
4481
4482 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4483 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4484
4485 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4486 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4487
4488 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4489
4490 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4491 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4492 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4493
4494 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4495 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4496
4497 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4498 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4499 as strings.
4500
4501 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4502 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4503 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4504
4505 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4506 iWMMXt coprocessor.
4507
4508 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4509 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4510 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4511
4512 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4513
4514 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4515
4516 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4517 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4518 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4519
4520 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4521 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4522
4523 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4524 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4525 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4526 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4527 Windows and SymbianOS).
4528
4529 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4530 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4531
4532 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4533 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4534
4535 * New commands
4536
4537 set remoteflow
4538 show remoteflow
4539 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4540 when debugging using remote targets.
4541
4542 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4543 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4544 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4545 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4546 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4547 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4548 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4549
4550 set breakpoint auto-hw
4551 show breakpoint auto-hw
4552 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4553 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4554 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4555 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4556 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4557 including "next" and "finish".
4558
4559 catch exception
4560 catch exception unhandled
4561 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4562
4563 catch assert
4564 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4565
4566 set sysroot
4567 show sysroot
4568 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4569 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4570 an alias to "set sysroot".
4571
4572 info spu
4573 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4574 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4575 architecture.
4576
4577 * New native configurations
4578
4579 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4580
4581 set tdesc filename
4582 unset tdesc filename
4583 show tdesc filename
4584 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4585 not query the target for its built-in description.
4586
4587 * New targets
4588
4589 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4590 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4591 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4592
4593 * New remote packets
4594
4595 QPassSignals:
4596 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4597 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4598
4599 qXfer:features:read:
4600 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4601 features.
4602
4603 qXfer:spu:read:
4604 qXfer:spu:write:
4605 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4606 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4607
4608 qXfer:libraries:read:
4609 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4610 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4611 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4612 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4613
4614 * Removed targets
4615
4616 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4617
4618 alpha*-*-osf1*
4619 alpha*-*-osf2*
4620 d10v-*-*
4621 hppa*-*-hiux*
4622 i[34567]86-ncr-*
4623 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
4624 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4625 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4626 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4627 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4628 i[34567]86-*-sco*
4629 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4630 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
4631 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
4632 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4633 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4634 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
4635 i[34567]86-*-isc*
4636 m68*-cisco*-*
4637 m68*-tandem-*
4638 mips*-*-pe
4639 rs6000-*-lynxos*
4640 sh*-*-pe
4641
4642 * Other removed features
4643
4644 target abug
4645 target cpu32bug
4646 target est
4647 target rom68k
4648
4649 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4650
4651 target hms
4652 target e7000
4653 target sh3
4654 target sh3e
4655
4656 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4657 H8/300.
4658
4659 target ocd
4660
4661 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4662 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4663 interfaces.
4664
4665 DWARF 1 support
4666
4667 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4668 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4669
4670 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4671
4672 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4673 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4674 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4675 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4676
4677 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4678
4679 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4680 in debugging information.
4681
4682 Scheme support
4683
4684 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4685 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4686
4687 set mips stack-arg-size
4688 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4689
4690 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4691
4692 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4693
4694 * New targets
4695
4696 Xtensa xtensa-elf
4697 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4698
4699 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4700 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4701 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4702
4703 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4704 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4705 supported.
4706
4707 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4708 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4709
4710 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4711 stub provides the required support.
4712
4713 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4714 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4715
4716 * New commands
4717
4718 set substitute-path
4719 unset substitute-path
4720 show substitute-path
4721 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4722 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4723 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4724 between compilation and debugging.
4725
4726 set trace-commands
4727 show trace-commands
4728 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4729 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4730 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4731
4732 * REMOVED features
4733
4734 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4735
4736 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4737 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4738
4739 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4740
4741 * New remote packets
4742
4743 qSupported:
4744 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4745 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4746 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4747 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4748 target.
4749
4750 qXfer:auxv:read:
4751 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4752 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4753
4754 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4755 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4756 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4757
4758 vFlashErase:
4759 vFlashWrite:
4760 vFlashDone:
4761 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4762
4763 * Removed remote packets
4764
4765 qPart:auxv:read:
4766 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4767 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4768
4769 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4770
4771 * New targets
4772
4773 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4774
4775 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4776
4777 * New commands
4778
4779 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4780 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4781
4782 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4783
4784 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4785
4786 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4787 previously saved state.
4788
4789 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4790
4791 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4792
4793 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4794 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4795
4796 info forks List forks of the user program that
4797 are available to be debugged.
4798
4799 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4800 forks of the user program that are
4801 available to be debugged.
4802
4803 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4804 that are available to be debugged (and
4805 kill the forked process).
4806
4807 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4808 that are available to be debugged (and
4809 allow the process to continue).
4810
4811 * New architecture
4812
4813 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4814
4815 * Improved Windows host support
4816
4817 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4818 native console support, and remote communications using either
4819 network sockets or serial ports.
4820
4821 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4822
4823 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4824 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4825 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4826 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4827 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4828 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4829
4830 * REMOVED features
4831
4832 The ARM rdi-share module.
4833
4834 The Netware NLM debug server.
4835
4836 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4837
4838 * New native configurations
4839
4840 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4841 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4842
4843 * New targets
4844
4845 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4846
4847 * New command line options
4848
4849 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4850 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4851 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4852 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4853 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4854 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4855 with the --command (-x) option.
4856
4857 * Deprecated commands removed
4858
4859 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4860 removed:
4861
4862 Command Replacement
4863 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4864 othernames set arm disassembler
4865 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4866 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4867 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4868 regs info registers
4869
4870 * New BSD user-level threads support
4871
4872 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4873 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4874 configurations are:
4875
4876 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4877 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4878 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4879
4880 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4881 are not yet supported.
4882
4883 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4884 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4885
4886 * REMOVED configurations and files
4887
4888 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4889 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4890 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4891
4892 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4893
4894 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4895 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4896 behavior.
4897
4898 * VAX floating point support
4899
4900 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4901
4902 * User-defined command support
4903
4904 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4905 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4906 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4907
4908 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4909
4910 * New command line option
4911
4912 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4913 debugging.
4914
4915 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4916
4917 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4918 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4919 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4920 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4921 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4922
4923 * Internationalization
4924
4925 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4926 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4927 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4928
4929 * Ada
4930
4931 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4932 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4933 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4934
4935 * New native configurations
4936
4937 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4938
4939 * Remote 'p' packet
4940
4941 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4942 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4943
4944 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4945
4946 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4947 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4948 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4949 i386 application).
4950
4951 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4952 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4953 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4954 configurations:
4955
4956 hppa-*-hpux
4957 ia64-*-aix
4958 mips-*-irix*
4959 *-*-lynx
4960 mips-*-linux-gnu
4961 sds protocol
4962 xdr protocol
4963 powerpc bdm protocol
4964
4965 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4966 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4967
4968 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4969
4970 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4971 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4972 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4973 permanently REMOVED.
4974
4975 h8300-*-*
4976 mcore-*-*
4977 mn10300-*-*
4978 ns32k-*-*
4979 sh64-*-*
4980 v850-*-*
4981
4982 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4983
4984 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4985
4986 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4987 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4988 been fixed.
4989
4990 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4991
4992 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4993 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4994 IRIX long double values).
4995
4996 * VAX and "next"
4997
4998 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4999 command. This problem has been fixed.
5000
5001 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5002
5003 * Fix for ``many threads''
5004
5005 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5006 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5007 error message:
5008
5009 ptrace: No such process.
5010 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5011
5012 This problem has been fixed.
5013
5014 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5015
5016 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5017 GDB to dump core).
5018
5019 * New ``start'' command.
5020
5021 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
5022
5023 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5024
5025 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5026 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5027 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5028
5029 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5030 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5031 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5032 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5033 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5034 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5035 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5036 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5037 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5038
5039 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5040
5041 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5042 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5043 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5044 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5045 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5046
5047 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5048 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5049 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5050
5051 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5052
5053 * New native configurations
5054
5055 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5056 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5057 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5058 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5059 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5060 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5061 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5062
5063 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5064
5065 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5066 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5067 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5068 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5069 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5070 work, was also included.
5071
5072 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5073 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5074
5075 h8300-*-*
5076 mcore-*-*
5077 mn10300-*-*
5078 ns32k-*-*
5079 sh64-*-*
5080 v850-*-*
5081 xstormy16-*-*
5082
5083 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5084 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5085
5086 * REMOVED configurations and files
5087
5088 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5089 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5090 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5091 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5092 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5093 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5094 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5095 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5096 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5097 sonymips mips-sony-*
5098 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5099
5100 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5101
5102 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5103
5104 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5105 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5106 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5107 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5108 with GDB".
5109
5110 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5111
5112 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5113 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5114 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5115 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5116 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5117 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5118 are created.
5119
5120 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5121
5122 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5123
5124 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5125 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5126 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5127
5128 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5129
5130 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5131 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5132
5133 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5134
5135 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5136 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5137 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5138
5139 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5140
5141 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5142 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5143
5144 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5145
5146 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5147 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5148 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5149
5150 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5151
5152 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5153 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5154 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5155
5156 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5157
5158 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5159
5160 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5161 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5162
5163 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5164
5165 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5166 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5167 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5168 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5169
5170 * Revised SPARC target
5171
5172 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5173 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5174 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5175 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5176 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5177
5178 * New C++ demangler
5179
5180 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5181 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5182 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5183 programs.
5184
5185 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5186
5187 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5188 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5189 encountered these.
5190
5191 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5192
5193 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5194 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5195 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5196 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5197 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5198 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5199 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5200 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5201 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5202
5203 * New native configurations
5204
5205 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5206 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5207 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5208 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5209 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5210
5211 * New debugging protocols
5212
5213 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5214
5215 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5216
5217 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5218 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5219 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5220
5221 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5222
5223 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5224 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5225 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5226 permanently REMOVED.
5227
5228 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5229 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5230 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5231 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5232 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5233 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5234 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5235 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5236 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5237 sonymips mips-sony-*
5238 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5239
5240 * REMOVED configurations and files
5241
5242 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5243 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5244 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5245 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5246 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5247 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5248 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5249 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5250 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5251 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5252 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5253 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5254 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5255 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5256 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5257 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5258 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5259
5260 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5261
5262 * Objective-C
5263
5264 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5265 integrated into GDB.
5266
5267 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5268
5269 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5270 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5271 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5272 backtraces.
5273
5274 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5275 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5276 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5277
5278 * Hosted file I/O.
5279
5280 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5281 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5282 remote protocol documentation for details.
5283
5284 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5285
5286 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5287 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5288 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5289 ppc32 on ppc64).
5290
5291 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5292
5293 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5294 per-thread variables.
5295
5296 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5297
5298 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5299 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5300
5301 * Separate debug info.
5302
5303 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5304 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5305 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5306 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5307 and optional debug files.
5308
5309 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5310
5311 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5312 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5313 debugger.
5314
5315 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5316 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5317
5318 * Java
5319
5320 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5321 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5322 considered "useable".
5323
5324 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5325
5326 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5327 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5328 kernel.
5329
5330 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5331
5332 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5333 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5334
5335 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5336
5337 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5338 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5339 command.
5340
5341 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5342
5343 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5344 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5345
5346 * Profiling support
5347
5348 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5349 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5350 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5351 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5352 data, for more informative profiling results.
5353
5354 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5355
5356 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5357 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5358 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5359
5360 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5361 removed.
5362
5363 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5364 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5365 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5366 in a subsequent -var-update.
5367
5368 * New native configurations.
5369
5370 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5371
5372 * Multi-arched targets.
5373
5374 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5375 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5376
5377 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5378
5379 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5380 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5381 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5382 permanently REMOVED.
5383
5384 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5385 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5386 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5387 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5388 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5389 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5390 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5391 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5392 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5393 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5394 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5395 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5396
5397 * REMOVED configurations and files
5398
5399 V850EA ISA
5400 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5401 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5402 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5403 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5404 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5405 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5406 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5407 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5408 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5409 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5410 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5411 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5412 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5413
5414 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5415
5416 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5417 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5418 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5419 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5420 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5421
5422 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5423
5424 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5425
5426 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5427 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5428 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5429 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5430 shared libs like mad''.
5431
5432 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5433
5434 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5435 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5436 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5437 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5438
5439 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5440
5441 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5442 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5443 they expand.
5444
5445 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5446 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5447
5448 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5449 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5450
5451 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5452 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5453 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5454 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5455
5456 * Multi-arched targets.
5457
5458 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5459 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5460 NEC V850 v850-*-*
5461 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5462 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5463 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5464
5465 * New targets.
5466
5467 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5468
5469
5470 * New native configurations
5471
5472 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5473 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5474 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5475 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5476
5477 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5478
5479 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5480 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5481 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5482 permanently REMOVED.
5483
5484 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5485 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5486 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5487 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5488 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5489 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5490 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5491 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5492 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5493 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5494 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5495 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5496 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5497
5498 * OBSOLETE languages
5499
5500 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5501
5502 * REMOVED configurations and files
5503
5504 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5505 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5506 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5507 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5508 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5509
5510 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5511
5512 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5513
5514 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5515 commands. The default is 1024.
5516
5517 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5518
5519 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5520
5521 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5522
5523 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5524 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5525 from a file into memory (restore).
5526
5527 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5528
5529 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5530 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5531 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5532
5533 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5534
5535 * New targets.
5536
5537 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
5538
5539 * Bug fixes
5540
5541 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5542 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5543 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5544
5545 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5546 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5547 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5548
5549 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5550 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5551 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5552
5553 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5554 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5555 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5556
5557 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5558
5559 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5560
5561 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5562 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5563 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5564 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5565 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5566 (notably embedded) targets.
5567
5568 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5569
5570 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5571 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5572 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5573 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5574
5575 * New command line option
5576
5577 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5578
5579 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5580
5581 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5582 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5583 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5584 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5585 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5586 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5587 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5588 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5589 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5590 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5591
5592 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5593
5594 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5595 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5596
5597 * New native configurations
5598
5599 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5600 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5601 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5602 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5603
5604 * New targets
5605
5606 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5607
5608 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5609
5610 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5611 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5612 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5613 permanently REMOVED.
5614
5615 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5616 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5617 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5618 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5619 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5620
5621 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5622
5623 * REMOVED configurations and files
5624
5625 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5626 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5627 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5628 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5629 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5630 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5631 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5632 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5633 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5634 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5635 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5636 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5637 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5638
5639 * Changes to command line processing
5640
5641 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5642 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5643
5644 * Changes to key bindings
5645
5646 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5647
5648 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5649
5650 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5651
5652 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5653 corrupted.
5654
5655 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5656
5657 Numerous documentation fixes.
5658
5659 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5660
5661 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5662
5663 * New native configurations
5664
5665 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5666 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5667 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5668 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5669 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5670 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5671
5672 * New targets
5673
5674 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5675 CRIS cris-axis
5676 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5677
5678 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5679
5680 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5681 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5682 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5683 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5684 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5685 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5686 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5687 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5688 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5689 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5690 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5691 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5692 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5693 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5694
5695 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5696 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5697
5698 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5699 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5700 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5701 permanently REMOVED.
5702
5703 * REMOVED configurations and files
5704
5705 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5706 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5707 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5708 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5709 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5710 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
5711
5712 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5713
5714 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5715 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5716 present.
5717
5718 * Other news:
5719
5720 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5721
5722 * The MI enabled by default.
5723
5724 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5725 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5726 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5727 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5728 which is now deprecated.
5729
5730 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5731
5732 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5733 main features are supported:
5734
5735 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5736
5737 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5738 extension;
5739
5740 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5741
5742 - a Pascal expression parser.
5743
5744 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5745
5746 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5747
5748 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5749
5750 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5751 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5752
5753 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5754
5755 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5756
5757 * Changes in completion.
5758
5759 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5760 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5761 users expect at the shell prompt.
5762
5763 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5764 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5765 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5766 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5767 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5768 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5769 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5770
5771 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5772
5773 * New platform-independent commands:
5774
5775 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5776 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5777 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5778
5779 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5780
5781 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5782 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5783 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5784
5785 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5786
5787 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5788 multi-threaded programs though.
5789
5790 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5791
5792 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5793
5794 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5795 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5796 supported.)
5797
5798 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5799
5800 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5801 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5802 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5803 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5804 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5805 registers.
5806
5807 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5808 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5809 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5810
5811 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5812
5813 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5814 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5815
5816 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5817 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5818 IDT.
5819
5820 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5821 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5822 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5823 a given linear address.
5824
5825 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5826 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5827 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5828
5829 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5830
5831 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5832
5833 * Changes in documentation.
5834
5835 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5836 Documentation License.
5837
5838 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5839 manual.
5840
5841 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5842
5843 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5844 manual.
5845
5846 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5847 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5848 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5849
5850 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5851
5852 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5853 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5854 contents of this file.
5855
5856 * gdba.el deleted
5857
5858 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5859
5860 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5861
5862 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5863
5864 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5865 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5866 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5867 greater level of detail.
5868
5869 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5870
5871 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5872 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5873 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5874 written.
5875
5876 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5877
5878 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5879 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5880 machines ``out of the box''.
5881
5882 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5883 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5884 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5885 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5886 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5887
5888 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5889 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5890 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5891 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5892 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5893
5894 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5895 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5896 also works.
5897
5898 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5899 GDB.
5900
5901 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5902 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5903 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5904 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5905
5906 * New native configurations
5907
5908 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5909 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5910
5911 * New targets
5912
5913 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5914 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5915 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5916 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5917
5918 * OBSOLETE configurations
5919
5920 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5921 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5922 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5923 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5924 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5925
5926 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5927 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5928 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5929 be permanently REMOVED.
5930
5931 * Gould support removed
5932
5933 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5934
5935 * New features for SVR4
5936
5937 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5938 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5939 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5940
5941 * Many C++ enhancements
5942
5943 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5944 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5945
5946 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5947
5948 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5949 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5950 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5951 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5952
5953 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5954 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5955
5956 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5957
5958 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5959 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5960 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5961
5962 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5963 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5964
5965 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5966
5967 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5968 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5969 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5970
5971 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5972
5973 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5974 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5975 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5976
5977 * ``apropos'' command added.
5978
5979 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5980 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5981 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5982
5983 * New MI interface
5984
5985 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5986 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5987 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5988 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5989 enabled by configuring with:
5990
5991 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5992
5993 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5994
5995 * New native configurations
5996
5997 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5998 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5999 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6000
6001 * New targets
6002
6003 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6004 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6005 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6006
6007 * OBSOLETE configurations
6008
6009 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6010
6011 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6012 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6013 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6014 be permanently REMOVED.
6015
6016 * ANSI/ISO C
6017
6018 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6019 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6020 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6021 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6022 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6023 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6024 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6025 already.
6026
6027 * Readline 2.2
6028
6029 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6030
6031 * set extension-language
6032
6033 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6034 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6035 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6036 set extension-language .c c++
6037 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6038 and their associated languages.
6039
6040 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6041
6042 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6043 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6044 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6045
6046 set processor NAME
6047
6048 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6049 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6050
6051 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6052 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6053 403 IBM PowerPC 403
6054 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6055 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6056 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6057 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6058 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6059 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6060 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6061 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6062
6063 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6064 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6065 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6066 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6067
6068 * HP-UX support
6069
6070 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6071 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6072 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6073 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6074 for xdb and dbx commands.
6075
6076 * Catchpoints
6077
6078 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6079 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6080 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6081
6082 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6083 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6084 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6085
6086 * Debugging across forks
6087
6088 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6089 in the inferior.
6090
6091 * TUI
6092
6093 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6094 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6095 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6096
6097 * GDB remote protocol additions
6098
6099 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6100 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6101 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6102 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6103
6104 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6105 full 64-bit address. The command
6106
6107 set remoteaddresssize 32
6108
6109 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6110 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6111 will be discarded.
6112
6113 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6114 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6115
6116 maint packet heythere
6117
6118 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6119 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6120 time.
6121
6122 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6123 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6124 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6125
6126 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6127
6128 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6129 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6130 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6131
6132 * mask-address variable for Mips
6133
6134 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6135 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6136 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6137
6138 * Higher serial baud rates
6139
6140 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6141 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6142 to achieve all of these rates.)
6143
6144 * i960 simulator
6145
6146 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6147 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6148
6149
6150 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6151
6152 * New native configurations
6153
6154 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6155 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6156 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6157 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6158 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6159 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6160 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6161
6162 * New targets
6163
6164 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6165 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6166 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6167 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6168 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6169 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6170 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6171 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6172 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6173 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6174 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6175
6176 * New debugging protocols
6177
6178 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6179 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6180 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6181 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6182 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6183 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6184
6185 * DWARF 2
6186
6187 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6188 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6189 information.
6190
6191 * Java frontend
6192
6193 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6194 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6195
6196 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6197
6198 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6199 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6200 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6201
6202 * Live range splitting
6203
6204 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6205 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6206 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6207
6208 * Hurd support
6209
6210 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6211 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6212
6213 * ARM Thumb support
6214
6215 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6216 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6217 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6218 accordingly.
6219
6220 * MIPS16 support
6221
6222 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6223 instruction set.
6224
6225 * Overlay support
6226
6227 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6228 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6229 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6230 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6231 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6232 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6233
6234 * info symbol
6235
6236 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6237 the symbol at the specified address.
6238
6239 * Trace support
6240
6241 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6242 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6243 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6244 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6245 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6246
6247 * MIPS simulator
6248
6249 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6250 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6251 of most MIPS variants.
6252
6253 * Sparc simulator
6254
6255 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6256 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6257 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6258
6259 * set architecture
6260
6261 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6262 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6263 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6264 the possible architectures.
6265
6266 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6267
6268 * New native configurations
6269
6270 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6271 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6272 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6273 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6274 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6275 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6276
6277 * New targets
6278
6279 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6280 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6281 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6282 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6283 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6284 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6285 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6286
6287 * PowerPC simulator
6288
6289 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6290 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6291 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6292 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6293 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6294
6295 * Solaris 2.5
6296
6297 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6298
6299 * Windows 95/NT native
6300
6301 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6302 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6303 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6304 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6305 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6306
6307 * dont-repeat command
6308
6309 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6310 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6311 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6312 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6313
6314 * Send break instead of ^C
6315
6316 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6317 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6318 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6319
6320 * Remote protocol timeout
6321
6322 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6323 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6324 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6325
6326 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6327
6328 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6329 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6330 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6331 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6332 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6333
6334 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6335 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6336 automatically on hpux10.
6337
6338 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6339
6340 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6341
6342 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6343
6344 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6345 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6346 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6347 every character. The default value is 1050.
6348
6349 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6350
6351 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6352 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6353 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6354 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6355 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6356 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6357
6358 * Speedups for remote debugging
6359
6360 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6361 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6362 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6363
6364 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6365
6366 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6367 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6368
6369 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6370
6371 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6372
6373 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6374 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6375
6376 * Remote targets use caching
6377
6378 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6379 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6380 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6381 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6382 off' turns the the data cache off.
6383
6384 * Remote targets may have threads
6385
6386 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6387 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6388 gdb/remote.c for details.
6389
6390 * NetROM support
6391
6392 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6393 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6394 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6395 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6396 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6397 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6398 sequence is something like
6399
6400 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6401 load <prog>
6402 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6403
6404 * Macintosh host
6405
6406 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6407 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6408 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6409 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6410 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6411 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6412 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6413 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6414
6415 * Autoconf
6416
6417 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6418 but does simplify configuration and building.
6419
6420 * hpux10
6421
6422 GDB now supports hpux10.
6423
6424 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6425
6426 * New native configurations
6427
6428 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6429 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6430 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6431 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6432
6433 * New targets
6434
6435 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6436 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6437 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6438 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6439 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6440
6441 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6442
6443 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6444 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6445 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6446 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6447 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6448
6449 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6450
6451 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6452 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6453 trivial example:
6454 define adder
6455 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6456
6457 To execute the command use:
6458 adder 1 2 3
6459
6460 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6461 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6462 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6463
6464 * New `if' and `while' commands
6465
6466 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6467 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6468 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6469 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6470 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6471 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6472 if the expression is zero.
6473
6474 * Fortran source language mode
6475
6476 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6477 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6478 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6479 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6480 Fortran compilers.
6481
6482 * Better HPUX support
6483
6484 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6485 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6486 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6487 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6488 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6489
6490 adb -w a.out
6491 __dld_flags?W 0x5
6492 control-d
6493
6494 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6495 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6496
6497 adb -w a.out
6498 __dld_flags?W 0x4
6499 control-d
6500
6501 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6502 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6503 external linkage.
6504
6505 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6506 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6507
6508 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6509
6510 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6511 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6512 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6513 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6514 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6515 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6516
6517 * New DOS host serial code
6518
6519 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6520 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6521 a PC's serial port.
6522
6523 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6524
6525 * New "complete" command
6526
6527 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6528 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6529
6530 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6531
6532 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6533 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6534
6535 * Breakpoint hit counts
6536
6537 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6538 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6539 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6540 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6541 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6542 that breakpoint.
6543
6544 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6545
6546 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6547 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6548 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6549
6550 * Shared library breakpoints
6551
6552 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6553 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6554
6555 * Hardware watchpoints
6556
6557 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6558 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6559
6560 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6561
6562 * Annotations
6563
6564 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6565 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6566
6567 * Improved Irix 5 support
6568
6569 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6570
6571 * Improved HPPA support
6572
6573 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6574
6575 * New native configurations
6576
6577 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6578 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6579 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6580 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6581
6582 * New targets
6583
6584 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6585 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6586 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6587
6588 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6589
6590 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6591 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6592
6593 * Fixes
6594
6595 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6596 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6597
6598 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6599
6600 * Irix 5 is now supported
6601
6602 * HPPA support
6603
6604 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6605 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6606 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6607 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6608 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6609
6610
6611 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6612
6613 * User visible changes:
6614
6615 * Remote Debugging
6616
6617 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6618 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6619 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6620 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6621 debugging info for the mips target).
6622
6623 * DEC Alpha native support
6624
6625 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6626 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6627 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6628 Alpha-specific notes.
6629
6630 * Preliminary thread implementation
6631
6632 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6633
6634 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6635
6636 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6637 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6638 for details).
6639
6640 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6641
6642 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6643 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6644 call methods, ...etc.
6645
6646 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6647
6648 * User visible changes:
6649
6650 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6651 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6652 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6653 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6654
6655 Filename completion now works.
6656
6657 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6658 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6659 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6660
6661 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6662 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6663 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6664 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6665 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6666
6667 * DEC alpha support
6668
6669 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6670 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6671
6672
6673 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6674
6675 * Testsuite
6676
6677 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6678 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6679 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6680
6681 * C++ demangling
6682
6683 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6684 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6685 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6686 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6687 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6688
6689 * Simulators
6690
6691 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6692 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6693 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6694
6695 * New targets supported
6696
6697 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6698 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6699 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6700 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6701 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6702
6703 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6704 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6705 GO32 memory extender.
6706
6707 * New remote protocols
6708
6709 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6710
6711 * New source languages supported
6712
6713 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6714 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6715 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6716
6717
6718 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6719
6720 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6721
6722 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6723 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6724 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6725 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6726 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6727 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6728
6729 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6730
6731 * Faster and better demangling
6732
6733 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6734 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6735 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6736 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6737 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6738 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6739 symbol lookups.
6740
6741 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6742 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6743 compiler does not actually implement.
6744
6745 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6746
6747 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6748 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6749 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6750 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6751 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6752 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6753 fix.
6754
6755 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6756 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6757
6758 * Improved configure script
6759
6760 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6761 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6762 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6763 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6764
6765 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6766 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6767 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6768 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6769 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6770 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6771
6772 * Documentation improvements
6773
6774 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6775 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6776 before submitting changes.
6777
6778 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6779 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6780 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6781 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6782 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6783
6784 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6785 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6786 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6787 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6788 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6789 around this problem.
6790
6791 * New features
6792
6793 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6794 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6795 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6796 the target program.
6797
6798 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6799 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6800
6801 * New native hosts supported
6802
6803 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6804 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6805
6806 * New targets supported
6807
6808 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6809
6810 * New file formats supported
6811
6812 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6813 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6814
6815 * Major bug fixes
6816
6817 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6818
6819 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6820 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6821
6822 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6823 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6824 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6825
6826 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6827 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6828
6829 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6830 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6831 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6832 libraries.
6833
6834 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6835 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6836 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6837 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6838 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6839
6840 * Internal improvements
6841
6842 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6843 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6844
6845 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6846 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6847 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6848 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6849 shared code that handles any of them.
6850
6851 * New command line options
6852
6853 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6854
6855 * Mmalloc licensing
6856
6857 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6858 General Public License.
6859
6860 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6861
6862 * Host/native/target split
6863
6864 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6865 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6866 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6867 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6868 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6869
6870 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6871 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6872 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6873 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6874 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6875 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6876 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6877
6878 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6879 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6880 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6881
6882 * New hosts supported
6883
6884 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6885 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6886 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6887
6888 * New targets supported
6889
6890 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6891 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6892
6893 * New native hosts supported
6894
6895 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6896 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6897 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6898
6899 * New file formats supported
6900
6901 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6902 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6903 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6904
6905 * New commands
6906
6907 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6908 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6909 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6910
6911 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6912
6913 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6914 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6915 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6916 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6917
6918 * C++ improvements
6919
6920 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6921 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6922 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6923
6924 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6925
6926 * Major bug fixes
6927
6928 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6929 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6930 by the compiler.
6931
6932 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6933 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6934
6935 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6936 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6937 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6938 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6939 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6940 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6941
6942 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6943 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6944 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6945 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6946
6947 * AMD 29k support
6948
6949 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6950 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6951 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6952 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6953 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6954
6955 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6956 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6957 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6958 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6959
6960 * Remote interfaces
6961
6962 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6963 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6964 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6965 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6966 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6967 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6968 each instruction being stepped through.
6969
6970 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6971 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6972
6973 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6974 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6975 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6976 processor with a serial port.
6977
6978 * Configuration
6979
6980 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6981 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6982 supported, and what files each one uses.
6983
6984 * Library changes
6985
6986 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6987 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6988 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6989 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6990
6991 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6992 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6993 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6994 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6995
6996 * Documentation
6997
6998 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6999 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7000 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7001 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7002 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7003 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7004
7005 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7006
7007
7008 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7009
7010 * Better support for C++ function names
7011
7012 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7013 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7014 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7015 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7016 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7017
7018 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7019 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7020 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7021 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7022 for the list of formats.
7023
7024 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7025
7026 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7027 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7028 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7029 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
7030 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7031 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7032 this problem.)
7033
7034 * New 'maintenance' command
7035
7036 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7037 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7038 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7039
7040 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7041 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7042 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7043 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7044 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7045 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7046
7047 The following commands are new:
7048
7049 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7050 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7051 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7052
7053 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7054
7055 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7056 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7057 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7058 read after argv processing.
7059
7060 * New hosts supported
7061
7062 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7063
7064 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7065
7066 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7067 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7068 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7069 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7070 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7071 It costs extra.
7072
7073 * New targets supported
7074
7075 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7076
7077 * More smarts about finding #include files
7078
7079 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7080 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7081 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7082 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7083 the one that contains your sources.
7084
7085 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7086 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7087 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7088
7089 * Interesting infernals change
7090
7091 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7092 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7093 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7094 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7095
7096 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7097
7098 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7099 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7100 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7101
7102 See the ChangeLog for details.
7103
7104 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7105
7106 * New machines supported (host and target)
7107
7108 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7109
7110 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7111
7112 * New malloc package
7113
7114 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7115 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
7116 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7117 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7118 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7119 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7120
7121 * info proc
7122
7123 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7124 'help info proc' for details.
7125
7126 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7127
7128 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7129 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7130 possible.
7131
7132 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7133
7134 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7135 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7136 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7137 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7138 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7139 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7140
7141 * Cross byte order fixes
7142
7143 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7144 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7145
7146 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7147
7148 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7149 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7150 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7151 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7152 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7153 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7154 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7155 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7156 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7157 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7158
7159 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7160 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7161 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7162 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7163
7164 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7165 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7166 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7167 use is:
7168
7169 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7170
7171 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7172 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7173 shared across multiple host platforms.
7174
7175 * longjmp() handling
7176
7177 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7178 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7179 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7180 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7181
7182 * Solaris 2.0
7183
7184 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7185 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7186 reading symbols.
7187
7188 * Bug fixes
7189
7190 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7191 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7192 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7193
7194 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7195
7196 * New machines supported (host and target)
7197
7198 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7199 (except core files)
7200 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7201 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7202
7203 * New machines supported (target)
7204
7205 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7206
7207 * C++ support
7208
7209 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7210 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7211 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7212
7213 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7214 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7215 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7216 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7217 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7218 released.
7219
7220 * New features for SVR4
7221
7222 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7223 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7224 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7225
7226 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7227 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7228 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7229
7230 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7231 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7232
7233 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7234
7235 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7236 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7237 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7238 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7239 same code linked statically.
7240
7241 * New Getopt
7242
7243 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7244 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7245 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7246 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7247 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7248 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7249
7250 * Bugs fixed
7251
7252 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7253 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7254 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7255
7256
7257 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7258
7259 * New machines supported (host and target)
7260
7261 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7262 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7263 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7264
7265 * Almost SCO Unix support
7266
7267 We had hoped to support:
7268 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7269 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7270 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7271 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7272
7273 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7274
7275 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7276 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7277 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7278 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7279 reqired (if any).
7280
7281 * New Readline
7282
7283 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7284 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7285 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7286
7287 * Bugs fixed
7288
7289 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7290 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7291 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7292
7293 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7294
7295 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7296 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7297 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7298
7299 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7300 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7301 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7302 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7303 version 2.
7304
7305 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7306 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7307 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7308 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7309 situation somewhat.
7310
7311 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7312 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7313 methods.
7314
7315 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7316 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7317 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7318
7319
7320 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7321
7322 * Improved configuration
7323
7324 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7325 Porting BFD is simpler.
7326
7327 * Stepping improved
7328
7329 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7330 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7331 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7332 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7333
7334 * Bug fixing
7335
7336 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7337
7338 * New host supported (not target)
7339
7340 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7341
7342
7343 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7344
7345 * Multiple source language support
7346
7347 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7348 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7349 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7350 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7351 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7352 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7353
7354 * GDB and Modula-2
7355
7356 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7357 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7358 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7359 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7360
7361 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7362 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7363 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7364
7365 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7366 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7367
7368 * set write on/off
7369
7370 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7371 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7372 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7373 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7374 effect immediately.
7375
7376 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7377
7378 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7379 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7380 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7381 examining core files.
7382
7383 * set listsize
7384
7385 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7386 The default is 10.
7387
7388 * New machines supported (host and target)
7389
7390 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7391 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7392 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7393
7394 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7395
7396 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7397
7398 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7399
7400 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7401 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7402 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7403
7404 * New remote interfaces
7405
7406 AMD 29000 Adapt
7407 AMD 29000 Minimon
7408
7409
7410 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7411
7412 * New Facilities
7413
7414 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7415
7416 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7417 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7418 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7419 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7420 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7421 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7422 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7423 stub on the target system.
7424
7425 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7426
7427 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7428 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7429 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7430
7431 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7432 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7433
7434
7435 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7436
7437 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7438 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7439
7440 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7441 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7442 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7443
7444 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7445 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7446 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7447 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7448
7449 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7450 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7451 it is already running. Default is ON.
7452
7453 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7454 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7455 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7456 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7457 Default is ON.
7458
7459 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7460 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7461 or the value of the environment variable
7462 GDBHISTFILE.
7463
7464 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7465 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7466 HISTSIZE.
7467
7468 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7469 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7470 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7471
7472 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7473 history expansion will be performed on
7474 command line input. The default is OFF.
7475
7476 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7477 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7478 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7479
7480 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7481 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7482 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7483 variable TERM.
7484
7485 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7486 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7487 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7488 variable TERM.
7489
7490 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7491 ``set width'' instead.
7492
7493 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7494 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7495 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7496 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7497
7498 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7499 is OFF.
7500
7501 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7502 "raw" form if off.
7503
7504 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7505 like instructions.
7506
7507 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7508
7509
7510 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7511
7512 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7513 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7514 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7515 window.
7516
7517
7518 * Support for Shared Libraries
7519
7520 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7521 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7522 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7523 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7524 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7525 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7526 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7527 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7528
7529 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7530 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7531 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7532
7533 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7534
7535
7536 * Watchpoints
7537
7538 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7539 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7540 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7541 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7542 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7543 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7544
7545 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7546
7547 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7548
7549 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7550 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7551 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7552
7553
7554 * C++ multiple inheritance
7555
7556 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7557 for C++ programs.
7558
7559 * C++ exception handling
7560
7561 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7562 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7563 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7564 handler's context).
7565
7566 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7567 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7568 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7569
7570 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7571 current stack frame.
7572
7573
7574 * Minor command changes
7575
7576 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7577 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7578 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7579
7580 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7581 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7582 frames without printing.
7583
7584 * New directory command
7585
7586 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7587 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7588 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7589 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7590 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7591
7592 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7593
7594 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7595 for more details.
7596
7597 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7598 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7599 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7600 where the program that you are debugging will run.