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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 10
5
6 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
7 for the ARC target.
8
9 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
10 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
11 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
12
13 This includes:
14
15 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
16 a memory tag violation.
17
18 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
19 particular memory range.
20
21 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
22 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
23
24 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
25 Library).
26
27 * MI changes
28
29 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
30
31 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
32 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
33 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
34 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
35 -qualified".
36
37 ** '-break-insert --force-condition' and '-dprintf-insert --force-condition'
38
39 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
40 '--force-condition' flag to forcibly define a condition even when
41 the condition is invalid at all locations of the breakpoint. This
42 is equivalent to the '-force-condition' flag of the CLI's "break"
43 command.
44
45 ** '-break-condition --force'
46
47 The MI -break-condition command now supports a '--force' flag to
48 forcibly define a condition even when the condition is invalid at
49 all locations of the selected breakpoint. This is equivalent to
50 the '-force' flag of the CLI's "cond" command.
51
52 ** '-file-list-exec-source-files [--group-by-objfile]
53 [--basename | --dirname]
54 [--] [REGEXP]'
55
56 The existing -file-list-exec-source-files command now takes an
57 optional REGEXP which is used to filter the source files that are
58 included in the results.
59
60 By default REGEXP is matched against the full filename of the
61 source file. When one of --basename or --dirname is given then
62 REGEXP is only matched against the specified part of the full
63 source filename.
64
65 When the optional --group-by-objfile flag is used the output
66 format is changed, the results are now a list of object files
67 (executable and libraries) with the source files that are
68 associated with each object file.
69
70 The results from -file-list-exec-source-files now include a
71 'debug-fully-read' field which takes the value 'true' or 'false'.
72 A 'true' value indicates the source file is from a compilation
73 unit that has had its debug information fully read in by GDB, a
74 value of 'false' indicates GDB has only performed a partial scan
75 of the debug information so far.
76
77 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
78
79 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
80 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
81 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
82 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
83 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
84
85 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
86 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
87 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
88 been added.
89
90 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
91 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
92 name following a GNAT-specific format).
93
94 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
95 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
96 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
97 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
98 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
99 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
100
101 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
102 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
103 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
104 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
105
106 * For RISC-V targets, the target feature "org.gnu.gdb.riscv.vector" is
107 now understood by GDB, and can be used to describe the vector
108 registers of a target. The precise requirements of this register
109 feature are documented in the GDB manual.
110
111 * New commands
112
113 set debug event-loop
114 show debug event-loop
115 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
116
117 set print memory-tag-violations
118 show print memory-tag-violations
119 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
120 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
121 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
122
123 maintenance flush symbol-cache
124 maintenance flush register-cache
125 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
126 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
127
128 maintenance flush dcache
129 A new command to flush the dcache.
130
131 maintenance info target-sections
132 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
133
134 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
135 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
136 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
137 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
138 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
139 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
140 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
141 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
142 memory-tag check POINTER
143 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
144
145 set startup-quietly on|off
146 show startup-quietly
147 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
148 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
149 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
150 affect GDB.
151
152 set print type hex on|off
153 show print type hex
154 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
155 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
156
157 set python ignore-environment on|off
158 show python ignore-environment
159 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to ignore any
160 environment variables that would otherwise affect how Python
161 behaves. This command needs to be added to an early initialization
162 file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to affect GDB.
163
164 set python dont-write-bytecode auto|on|off
165 show python dont-write-bytecode
166 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to not write any
167 byte-code (.pyc files) to disk. This command needs to be added to
168 an early initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in
169 order to affect GDB. When 'off' byte-code will always be written.
170 When set to 'auto' (the default) Python will check the
171 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.
172
173 * Changed commands
174
175 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
176 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
177 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
178 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
179 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
180 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
181 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
182 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
183 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
184 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
185 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
186 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
187 load.
188
189 condition [-force] N COND
190 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
191 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
192 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
193 current locations of breakpoint N.
194
195 flushregs
196 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
197 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
198 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
199 symbol-cache' respectively.
200
201 set style version foreground COLOR
202 set style version background COLOR
203 set style version intensity VALUE
204 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
205
206 inferior [ID]
207 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
208 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
209 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
210 the current inferior.
211
212 maintenance info sections
213 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
214 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
215 even when -all-objects is passed.
216
217 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
218 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
219 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
220 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
221 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
222 type hex'.
223
224 * Removed targets and native configurations
225
226 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
227
228 * New remote packets
229
230 qMemTags
231 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
232 QMemTags
233 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
234 memory range.
235
236 * Guile API
237
238 ** Improved support for rvalue reference values:
239 TYPE_CODE_RVALUE_REF is now exported as part of the API and the
240 value-referenced-value procedure now handles rvalue reference
241 values.
242
243 ** New procedures for obtaining value variants:
244 value-reference-value, value-rvalue-reference-value and
245 value-const-value.
246
247 * Python API
248
249 ** Inferior objects now contain a read-only 'connection_num' attribute that
250 gives the connection number as seen in 'info connections' and
251 'info inferiors'.
252
253 ** New method gdb.Frame.level() which returns the stack level of the
254 frame object.
255
256 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.level() which returns the stack level
257 of the frame object.
258
259 ** When hitting a catchpoint, the Python API will now emit a
260 gdb.BreakpointEvent rather than a gdb.StopEvent. The
261 gdb.Breakpoint attached to the event will have type BP_CATCHPOINT.
262
263 *** Changes in GDB 10
264
265 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
266 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
267 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
268 grace period.
269
270 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
271 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
272 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
273 and finally the description of the command.
274
275 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
276 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
277
278 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
279 debugging information as well as source code.
280
281 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
282 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
283 being debugged.
284
285 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
286 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
287
288 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
289
290 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
291
292 * Multi-target debugging support
293
294 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
295 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
296 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
297 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
298 debugging a core dump, etc.
299
300 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
301 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
302 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
303 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
304 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
305 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
306
307 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
308
309 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
310
311 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
312
313 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
314
315 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
316 powerpc-*-lynxos*
317 i[34567]86-*-nto*
318 bfin-*-*linux*
319 crisv32-*-linux*
320 cris-*-linux*
321 m32r*-*-linux*
322 tilegx-*-linux*
323 arm*-*-mingw32ce*
324 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
325
326 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
327 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
328
329 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
330 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
331 performance for programs with many symbols.
332
333 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
334 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
335
336 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
337
338 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
339 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
340 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
341 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
342 history.
343
344 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
345 64-bit GDB.
346
347 * New commands
348
349 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
350 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
351 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
352 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
353 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
354 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
355 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
356 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
357 attempt to detect a mismatch.
358
359 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
360 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
361 will be displayed.
362
363 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
364 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
365 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
366 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
367 reprinted.
368
369 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
370 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
371 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
372
373 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
374 show debug fortran-array-slicing
375 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
376
377 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
378 show fortran repack-array-slices
379 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
380 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
381 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
382 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
383 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
384 original parent value.
385
386 * Changed commands
387
388 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
389 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
390 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
391 provided explicitly by the user.
392 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
393 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
394 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
395 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
396 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
397 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
398 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
399 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
400
401 * New targets
402
403 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
404 BPF bpf-unknown-none
405
406 * Python API
407
408 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
409 in Python.
410
411 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
412 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
413 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
414 as well.
415
416 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
417 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
418
419 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
420 architecture of the pending frame.
421
422 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
423 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
424 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
425 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
426
427 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
428 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
429 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
430 discover the available register groups.
431
432 * Guile API
433
434 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
435
436 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
437 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
438 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
439 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
440 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
441
442 *** Changes in GDB 9
443
444 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
445
446 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
447 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
448 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
449 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
450 such as in system-wide init files.
451
452 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
453 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
454 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
455 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
456 current GDB settings.
457
458 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
459 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
460 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
461 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
462
463 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
464 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
465 postfix [PAC].
466
467 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
468 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
469
470 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
471 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
472 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
473
474 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
475 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
476 commands.
477
478 * Command names can now use the . character.
479
480 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
481
482 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
483 messages.
484
485 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
486
487 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
488 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
489
490 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
491 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
492 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
493
494 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
495
496 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
497 not visible in the current scope.
498
499 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
500 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
501 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
502 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
503 compiled with support for that language.
504
505 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
506 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
507 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
508
509 * Python API
510
511 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
512 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
513 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
514 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
515 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
516
517 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
518 type was defined in.
519
520 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
521 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
522 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
523 is given.
524
525 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
526 symbols with static linkage.
527
528 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
529 all static symbols with static linkage.
530
531 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
532 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
533
534 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
535 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
536
537 * New commands
538
539 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
540 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
541 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
542 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
543 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
544 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
545 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
546
547 define-prefix COMMAND
548 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
549
550 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
551 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
552 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
553 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
554 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
555 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
556 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
557 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
558 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
559 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
560 of array elements to print.
561
562 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
563 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
564
565 set may-call-functions [on|off]
566 show may-call-functions
567 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
568 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
569 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
570 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
571 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
572 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
573 in the program.
574
575 set print finish [on|off]
576 show print finish
577 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
578 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
579 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
580 default is `on'.
581
582 set print max-depth
583 show print max-depth
584 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
585 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
586 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
587 the old behavior back.
588
589 set print raw-values [on|off]
590 show print raw-values
591 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
592 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
593 of commands. The default is 'off'.
594
595 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
596 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
597 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
598
599 set style title foreground COLOR
600 set style title background COLOR
601 set style title intensity VALUE
602 Control the styling of titles.
603
604 set style highlight foreground COLOR
605 set style highlight background COLOR
606 set style highlight intensity VALUE
607 Control the styling of highlightings.
608
609 maint set worker-threads
610 maint show worker-threads
611 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
612 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
613 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
614 the names of linker symbols.
615
616 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
617 set style tui-border background COLOR
618 Control the styling of TUI borders.
619
620 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
621 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
622 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
623
624 maint set test-settings KIND
625 maint show test-settings KIND
626 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
627 infrastructure.
628
629 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
630 maint show tui-resize-message
631 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
632 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
633 TUI.
634
635 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
636 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
637 show print frame-info
638 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
639 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
640 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
641 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
642
643 set tui compact-source
644 show tui compact-source
645
646 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
647 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
648 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
649 line numbers from the source.
650
651 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
652 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
653 no REGEXP is given.
654
655 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
656 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
657 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
658 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
659 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
660 matches against the function name.
661
662 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
663 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
664 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
665 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
666 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
667 against the variable name.
668
669 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
670 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
671 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
672 "set debug remote".
673 The default is 512 bytes.
674
675 info connections
676 Lists the target connections currently in use.
677
678 * Changed commands
679
680 help
681 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
682 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
683 command names.
684
685 apropos [-v] REGEXP
686 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
687 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
688 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
689 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
690 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
691
692 printf
693 eval
694 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
695 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
696 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
697 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
698
699 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
700 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
701 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
702 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
703 parts of the files.
704
705 show style
706 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
707 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
708 the user visualize the different styles.
709
710 set print frame-arguments
711 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
712 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
713
714 set print raw-frame-arguments
715 show print raw-frame-arguments
716
717 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
718 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
719 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
720 release.
721
722 add-inferior [-no-connection]
723 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
724 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
725 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
726 current inferior. See also "info connections".
727
728 info inferior
729 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
730 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
731 "info connections" above.
732
733 maint test-options require-delimiter
734 maint test-options unknown-is-error
735 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
736 maint show test-options-completion-result
737 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
738 framework.
739
740 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
741 These commands are now case-sensitive.
742
743 * New command options, command completion
744
745 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
746 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
747 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
748 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
749 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
750 number of commands got support for new command options in this
751 release:
752
753 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
754 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
755 set by "set print" subcommands:
756
757 -address [on|off]
758 -array [on|off]
759 -array-indexes [on|off]
760 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
761 -null-stop [on|off]
762 -object [on|off]
763 -pretty [on|off]
764 -raw-values [on|off]
765 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
766 -static-members [on|off]
767 -symbol [on|off]
768 -union [on|off]
769 -vtbl [on|off]
770
771 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
772 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
773 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
774 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
775
776 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
777 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
778 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
779
780 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
781 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
782 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
783 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
784 |location-and-address|short-location
785 -past-main [on|off]
786 -past-entry [on|off]
787
788 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
789 exposed as command options too:
790
791 -full
792 -no-filters
793 -hide
794
795 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
796 support the following options:
797
798 -past-main [on|off]
799 -past-entry [on|off]
800
801 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
802 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
803
804 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
805 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
806 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
807 like for example:
808
809 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
810
811 The above is equivalent to:
812
813 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
814
815 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
816 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
817 variables" and "info functions".
818
819 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
820 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
821 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
822 from the results.
823
824 * Completion improvements
825
826 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
827 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
828 abbreviated.
829
830 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
831 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
832 commands.
833
834 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
835 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
836 completes on filenames.
837
838 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
839 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
840
841 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
842
843 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
844 elements unlimited".
845
846 * New MI commands
847
848 -complete
849 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
850 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
851 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
852
853 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
854 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
855 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
856
857 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
858 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
859 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
860
861 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
862 modules' command.
863
864 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
865 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
866 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
867
868 * Other MI changes
869
870 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
871
872 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
873 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
874 the following commands and events:
875
876 - -break-insert
877 - -break-info
878 - =breakpoint-created
879 - =breakpoint-modified
880
881 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
882 this behavior with previous MI versions.
883
884 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
885 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
886 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
887 present.
888
889 * Testsuite
890
891 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
892 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
893 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
894 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
895
896 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
897
898 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
899 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
900
901 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
902
903 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
904 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
905
906 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
907 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
908 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
909
910 * Removed targets and native configurations
911
912 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
913 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
914 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
915
916 * New Simulators
917
918 TI PRU pru-*-elf
919
920 * Removed targets and native configurations
921
922 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
923 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
924
925 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
926
927 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
928 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
929 HTM registers.
930
931 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
932 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
933 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
934 and operators.
935
936 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
937 (the C++ plug-in).
938
939 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
940 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
941 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
942
943 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
944 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
945
946 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
947 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
948 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
949 in the GDB user manual.
950
951 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
952 executed failed.
953
954 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
955
956 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
957 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
958 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
959 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
960 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
961 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
962 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
963 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
964 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
965 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
966 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
967 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
968
969 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
970 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
971 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
972 information.
973
974 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
975 lucid.
976
977 * New commands
978
979 set debug compile-cplus-types
980 show debug compile-cplus-types
981 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
982 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
983 for other languages.
984
985 set debug skip
986 show debug skip
987 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
988 displayed.
989
990 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
991 Apply a command to some frames.
992 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
993 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
994
995 taas COMMAND
996 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
997 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
998
999 faas COMMAND
1000 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
1001 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
1002
1003 tfaas COMMAND
1004 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
1005 output).
1006 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
1007
1008 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
1009 maint show dwarf unwinders
1010 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
1011
1012 info proc files
1013 Display a list of open files for a process.
1014
1015 * Changed commands
1016
1017 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
1018 These commands all now take a frame specification which
1019 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
1020 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
1021 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
1022 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
1023 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
1024
1025 target remote FILENAME
1026 target extended-remote FILENAME
1027 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
1028 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
1029
1030 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1031 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1032 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1033 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
1034 These commands can now print only the searched entities
1035 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
1036 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
1037 printing headers or informations messages.
1038
1039 info functions
1040 info types
1041 info variables
1042 rbreak
1043 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
1044 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
1045 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
1046 the shown entities.
1047
1048 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1049 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
1050 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
1051 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
1052
1053 set tui tab-width NCHARS
1054 show tui tab-width NCHARS
1055 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
1056
1057 set style enabled [on|off]
1058 show style enabled
1059 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
1060 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
1061
1062 set style sources [on|off]
1063 show style sources
1064 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
1065 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
1066 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
1067
1068 set style filename foreground COLOR
1069 set style filename background COLOR
1070 set style filename intensity VALUE
1071 Control the styling of file names.
1072
1073 set style function foreground COLOR
1074 set style function background COLOR
1075 set style function intensity VALUE
1076 Control the styling of function names.
1077
1078 set style variable foreground COLOR
1079 set style variable background COLOR
1080 set style variable intensity VALUE
1081 Control the styling of variable names.
1082
1083 set style address foreground COLOR
1084 set style address background COLOR
1085 set style address intensity VALUE
1086 Control the styling of addresses.
1087
1088 * MI changes
1089
1090 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
1091 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
1092 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
1093 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
1094 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
1095
1096 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
1097 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
1098
1099 * New native configurations
1100
1101 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1102 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1103
1104 * New targets
1105
1106 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1107 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
1108 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
1109 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1110 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
1111 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
1112
1113 * Removed targets
1114
1115 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
1116 before Windows XP.
1117
1118 * Python API
1119
1120 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
1121
1122 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
1123 space associated to that inferior.
1124
1125 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
1126 of objfiles associated to that program space.
1127
1128 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
1129 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
1130 the gdb core.
1131
1132 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
1133 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
1134 correct and did not work properly.
1135
1136 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
1137 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
1138
1139 * Configure changes
1140
1141 --enable-ubsan
1142
1143 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
1144 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
1145 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
1146 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
1147 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
1148
1149 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
1150
1151 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
1152 for the MIPS target.
1153
1154 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
1155 offset to all sections.
1156
1157 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
1158 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
1159 address of individual sections using '-s'.
1160
1161 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
1162 (address of the text section).
1163
1164 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
1165 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
1166 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
1167 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
1168 default.
1169
1170 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
1171 for the rest of the current command.
1172
1173 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
1174 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
1175
1176 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
1177 files created on FreeBSD systems.
1178
1179 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
1180 alignof.
1181
1182 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
1183 the vector length while the process is running.
1184
1185 * New commands
1186
1187 set debug fbsd-nat
1188 show debug fbsd-nat
1189 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
1190
1191 set|show varsize-limit
1192 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
1193 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
1194 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
1195
1196 set|show record btrace cpu
1197 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
1198 branch trace decode.
1199
1200 maint check libthread-db
1201 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
1202 library
1203
1204 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
1205 maint show check-libthread-db
1206 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
1207 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
1208 perform such checks.
1209
1210 * Python API
1211
1212 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
1213
1214 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
1215 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
1216
1217 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
1218
1219 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
1220 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
1221 of convenience variables.
1222
1223 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
1224 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
1225 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
1226
1227 * New targets
1228
1229 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
1230
1231 * Removed targets and native configurations
1232
1233 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
1234 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
1235 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
1236 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
1237
1238 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
1239
1240 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
1241 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
1242 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
1243 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
1244 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
1245 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
1246 reported.
1247
1248 * Configure changes
1249
1250 --enable-codesign=CERT
1251 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
1252 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
1253 gdb to work properly.
1254
1255 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
1256 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
1257
1258 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
1259
1260 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
1261 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
1262 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
1263
1264 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
1265 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
1266
1267 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
1268 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
1269 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
1270 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
1271 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1272
1273 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1274 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1275 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1276 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1277
1278 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1279 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1280
1281 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1282 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1283 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1284
1285 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1286 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1287 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1288
1289 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1290 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1291 environment" command.
1292
1293 * Completion improvements
1294
1295 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1296 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1297 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1298 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1299 correctly:
1300
1301 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1302 (gdb) b function(int)
1303
1304 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1305 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1306
1307 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
1308 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1309 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1310 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1311
1312 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1313 completion support, that better understands what you're
1314 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1315 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1316 setting a breakpoint.
1317
1318 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1319
1320 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1321
1322 * New command line options (gcore)
1323
1324 -a
1325 Dump all memory mappings.
1326
1327 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1328
1329 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1330 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1331 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1332
1333 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1334
1335 A::B::func()
1336 B::func()
1337
1338 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1339 on both symbols.
1340
1341 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1342 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1343 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1344 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1345 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1346 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1347 a breakpoint from Python.
1348
1349 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1350
1351 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1352 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1353 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1354
1355 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1356
1357 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1358 ^^^^^^^^^^^
1359
1360 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1361 no tag, like:
1362
1363 (gdb) b function(int)
1364
1365 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1366
1367 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1368
1369 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1370
1371 * Python Scripting
1372
1373 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1374 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1375 description of these.
1376
1377 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1378 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1379 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1380
1381 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1382 manual for a further description of this feature.
1383
1384
1385 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1386
1387 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1388 specified initial working directory.
1389
1390 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1391 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1392
1393 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1394 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1395
1396 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1397 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1398
1399 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1400 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1401 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1402 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1403 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1404
1405 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1406 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1407 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1408
1409 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1410 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1411 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1412 in the *stopped notification.
1413
1414 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1415 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1416
1417 * New remote packets
1418
1419 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1420 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1421 the inferior when starting it.
1422
1423 QEnvironmentUnset
1424 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1425 before starting the remote inferior.
1426
1427 QEnvironmentReset
1428 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1429 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1430
1431 QStartupWithShell
1432 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1433
1434 QSetWorkingDir
1435 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1436 working directory.
1437
1438 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1439 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1440
1441 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1442 filter the tests to be run.
1443
1444 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1445 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1446
1447 * New commands
1448
1449 set|show cwd
1450 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1451
1452 set|show compile-gcc
1453 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1454 with the 'compile' commands.
1455
1456 set debug separate-debug-file
1457 show debug separate-debug-file
1458 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1459
1460 set dump-excluded-mappings
1461 show dump-excluded-mappings
1462 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1463 dumped when generating a core file.
1464
1465 maint info selftests
1466 List the registered selftests.
1467
1468 starti
1469 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
1470
1471 set|show debug or1k
1472 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
1473
1474 set|show print type nested-type-limit
1475 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
1476 type printer will show.
1477
1478 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
1479 `o' for nexti.
1480
1481 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
1482
1483 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
1484 'int'.
1485
1486 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
1487 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
1488 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
1489 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
1490
1491 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
1492 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
1493 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
1494 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1495 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
1496 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1497
1498 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
1499 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
1500 unless you tell it the variable's type:
1501
1502 (gdb) p var
1503 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
1504 (gdb) p (float) var
1505 $3 = 3.14
1506
1507 * New native configurations
1508
1509 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1510 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1511
1512 * New targets
1513
1514 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1515 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1516 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
1517
1518 * Removed targets and native configurations
1519
1520 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
1521
1522 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
1523
1524 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
1525 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
1526 available in future Intel CPUs.
1527
1528 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
1529
1530 * Python Scripting
1531
1532 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
1533 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
1534
1535 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
1536 instructions.
1537
1538 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
1539
1540 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
1541
1542 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
1543 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1544 removed.
1545
1546 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1547
1548 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1549 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1550
1551 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1552
1553 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1554 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1555 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1556 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1557 features.
1558
1559 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1560
1561 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1562 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1563 debugger.
1564
1565 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1566
1567 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1568 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1569
1570 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1571
1572 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1573
1574 define mycommand
1575 set $i = 0
1576 while $i < $argc
1577 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1578 set $i = $i + 1
1579 end
1580 end
1581
1582 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1583
1584 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1585 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1586
1587 * New native configurations
1588
1589 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1590
1591 * New targets
1592
1593 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1594 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1595
1596 * Removed targets and native configurations
1597
1598 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1599 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1600
1601 * New commands
1602
1603 flash-erase
1604 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1605
1606 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1607 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1608
1609 * New options
1610
1611 set disassembler-options
1612 show disassembler-options
1613 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1614 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1615 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1616 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1617 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1618
1619 * New MI commands
1620
1621 -target-flash-erase
1622 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1623 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1624
1625 -file-list-shared-libraries
1626 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1627 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1628
1629 -catch-handlers
1630 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1631 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1632
1633 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1634
1635 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1636
1637 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1638 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1639 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1640 option will be removed in a future release.
1641
1642 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1643 GDB connection.
1644
1645 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1646 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1647
1648 (gdb) bt
1649 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1650 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1651 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1652 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1653 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1654 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1655 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1656 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1657 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1658
1659 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1660 arrays of dynamic types.
1661
1662 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1663 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1664 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1665 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1666 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1667 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1668
1669 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1670 descriptions.
1671
1672 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1673 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1674 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1675
1676 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1677
1678 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1679 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1680 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1681 signal received and code location.
1682
1683 For example:
1684
1685 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1686 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1687 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1688 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1689
1690 * Rust language support.
1691 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1692 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1693 Rust.
1694
1695 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1696
1697 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1698 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1699 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1700 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1701 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1702 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1703 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1704 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1705 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1706 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1707 line.
1708
1709 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1710
1711 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1712 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1713
1714 * New commands
1715
1716 skip -file file
1717 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1718 skip -function function
1719 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1720 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1721 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1722 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1723
1724 maint info line-table REGEXP
1725 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
1726
1727 maint selftest
1728 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1729
1730 new-ui INTERP TTY
1731 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1732 using the TTY file for input/output.
1733
1734 * Python Scripting
1735
1736 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1737 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1738 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1739 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1740 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1741
1742 signal-event EVENTID
1743 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1744 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1745 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1746 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1747 signalling an event.
1748
1749 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1750 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1751 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1752
1753 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1754 been removed:
1755
1756 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1757 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1758 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1759 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1760 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1761 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1762
1763 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1764 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1765 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1766 bytecode into native code.
1767
1768 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1769 recording. For example:
1770
1771 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1772
1773 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1774
1775 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1776
1777 * New targets
1778
1779 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1780
1781 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1782
1783 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1784
1785 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1786
1787 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1788 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1789 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1790
1791 (gdb) info threads
1792 Id Target Id Frame
1793 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1794 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1795 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1796 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1797
1798 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1799 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1800 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1801
1802 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1803 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1804 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1805
1806 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1807 IDs.
1808
1809 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1810 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1811
1812 (gdb) thread 2.1
1813 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1814 (gdb)
1815
1816 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1817 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1818 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1819 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1820 threads 2.*".
1821
1822 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1823 all threads.
1824
1825 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1826 the current thread.
1827
1828 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1829 current inferior.
1830
1831 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1832 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1833 example:
1834
1835 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1836 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1837
1838 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1839
1840 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1841
1842 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1843 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1844
1845 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1846 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1847 clients.
1848
1849 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1850 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1851 at the same time.
1852
1853 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1854 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1855 into native code.
1856
1857 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1858
1859 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1860 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1861 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1862
1863 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1864 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1865
1866 * New commands
1867
1868 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1869 maint show target-non-stop
1870 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1871 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1872 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1873
1874 maint set bfd-sharing
1875 maint show bfd-sharing
1876 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1877
1878 set debug bfd-cache
1879 show debug bfd-cache
1880 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1881
1882 set debug fbsd-lwp
1883 show debug fbsd-lwp
1884 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1885
1886 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1887 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1888 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1889
1890 set remote thread-events
1891 show remote thread-events
1892 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1893
1894 set ada print-signatures on|off
1895 show ada print-signatures"
1896 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1897 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
1898
1899 set max-value-size
1900 show max-value-size
1901 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1902 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1903 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1904
1905 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1906 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1907 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1908 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1909 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1910 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1911
1912 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1913 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1914
1915 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1916 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1917
1918 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1919
1920 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1921 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1922 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1923 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1924 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1925 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1926
1927 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1928 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1929
1930 catch handlers
1931 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1932
1933 * New remote packets
1934
1935 exec stop reason
1936 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1937
1938 exec-events feature in qSupported
1939 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1940 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1941 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1942 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1943
1944 vCtrlC
1945 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1946 non-stop mode.
1947
1948 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1949 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1950
1951 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1952 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1953
1954 QThreadEvents
1955 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1956 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1957 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1958 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1959 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1960 stop for that same thread.
1961
1962 N stop reply
1963 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1964 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1965 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1966
1967 QCatchSyscalls
1968 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1969 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1970
1971 syscall_entry stop reason
1972 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1973
1974 syscall_return stop reason
1975 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1976
1977 * Extended-remote exec events
1978
1979 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1980 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1981 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1982
1983 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1984 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1985 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1986
1987 * Thread names in remote protocol
1988
1989 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1990 thread.
1991
1992 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1993
1994 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1995 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1996 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1997 fork and exec catchpoints.
1998
1999 * Remote syscall events
2000
2001 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
2002 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
2003
2004 set remote catch-syscall-packet
2005 show remote catch-syscall-packet
2006 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
2007
2008 * MI changes
2009
2010 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
2011 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
2012 left.
2013
2014 * Python Scripting
2015
2016 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
2017 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
2018 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
2019 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
2020 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
2021 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
2022
2023 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
2024
2025 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
2026 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
2027 including advance SIMD instructions.
2028
2029 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
2030
2031 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
2032 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
2033 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
2034 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
2035 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
2036 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
2037 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
2038
2039 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2040 cpu information :
2041 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
2042
2043 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
2044 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
2045 remote serial I/O.
2046
2047 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
2048 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
2049 and may include things like its command line arguments.
2050
2051 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
2052 is now available on all platforms.
2053
2054 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
2055 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
2056 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
2057 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
2058 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
2059 backward compatibility.
2060
2061 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
2062 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
2063 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
2064 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
2065
2066 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
2067 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
2068 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
2069 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
2070 packets" below.
2071
2072 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
2073
2074 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
2075
2076 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
2077 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
2078 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
2079 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
2080 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
2081 See "New remote packets" below.
2082
2083 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
2084 available register groups, including target specific groups.
2085
2086 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
2087 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
2088 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
2089 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
2090 are ignored.
2091
2092 * Guile Scripting
2093
2094 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
2095
2096 * Python Scripting
2097
2098 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
2099 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
2100 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
2101 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
2102 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
2103 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
2104 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
2105 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
2106 "const" version of the value respectively.
2107
2108 * New commands
2109
2110 maint print symbol-cache
2111 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
2112
2113 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
2114 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
2115
2116 maint flush-symbol-cache
2117 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
2118
2119 record btrace bts
2120 record bts
2121 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
2122
2123 compile print
2124 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
2125
2126 tui enable
2127 tui disable
2128 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
2129
2130 show mpx bound
2131 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
2132 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
2133
2134 record btrace pt
2135 record pt
2136 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
2137
2138 maint info btrace
2139 Print information about branch tracing internals.
2140
2141 maint btrace packet-history
2142 Print the raw branch tracing data.
2143
2144 maint btrace clear-packet-history
2145 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
2146
2147 maint btrace clear
2148 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
2149 anew by the next "record" command.
2150
2151 * New options
2152
2153 set debug dwarf-die
2154 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
2155 show debug dwarf-die
2156 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
2157
2158 set debug dwarf-read
2159 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
2160 show debug dwarf-read
2161 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
2162
2163 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
2164 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2165 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
2166 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2167
2168 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
2169 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2170 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
2171 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2172
2173 set debug dwarf-line
2174 show debug dwarf-line
2175 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
2176
2177 set max-completions
2178 show max-completions
2179 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
2180 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
2181 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
2182 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
2183
2184 set history remove-duplicates
2185 show history remove-duplicates
2186 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
2187
2188 maint set symbol-cache-size
2189 maint show symbol-cache-size
2190 Control the size of the symbol cache.
2191
2192 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
2193 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2194 BTS format.
2195 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2196 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2197
2198 set debug linux-namespaces
2199 show debug linux-namespaces
2200 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
2201
2202 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
2203 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2204 Intel Processor Trace format.
2205 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2206 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2207
2208 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
2209 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
2210 packet history.
2211
2212 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
2213 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
2214
2215 * Python/Guile scripting
2216
2217 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
2218 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
2219
2220 * New remote packets
2221
2222 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
2223 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
2224
2225 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
2226 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
2227
2228 Qbtrace:pt
2229 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
2230 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
2231 qSupported query.
2232
2233 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
2234 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
2235 Trace format.
2236
2237 swbreak stop reason
2238 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
2239 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
2240 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
2241 mode operation.
2242
2243 hwbreak stop reason
2244 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
2245 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
2246
2247 vFile:fstat:
2248 Return information about files on the remote system.
2249
2250 qXfer:exec-file:read
2251 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
2252 create a process running on the remote system.
2253
2254 vFile:setfs:
2255 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
2256 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
2257 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
2258 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
2259
2260 fork stop reason
2261 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
2262
2263 vfork stop reason
2264 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
2265
2266 vforkdone stop reason
2267 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
2268 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
2269
2270 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
2271 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2272 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2273 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2274 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2275 whether these features are enabled.
2276
2277 * Extended-remote fork events
2278
2279 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2280 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2281 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2282 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2283
2284 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2285 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2286 the btrace record target.
2287 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2288
2289 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2290 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2291
2292 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2293 targets.
2294
2295 * Removed command line options
2296
2297 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2298
2299 * Removed targets and native configurations
2300
2301 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2302 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2303
2304 * New configure options
2305
2306 --with-intel-pt
2307 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2308 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2309
2310 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2311 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2312 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2313 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2314
2315 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2316
2317 * Python Scripting
2318
2319 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2320
2321 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2322
2323 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2324
2325 * Python Scripting
2326
2327 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2328 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2329 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2330 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2331 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2332 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2333 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2334 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2335 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2336 selecting a new file to debug.
2337 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2338 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2339
2340 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2341 inferior.
2342
2343 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2344 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2345 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2346 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2347
2348 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2349
2350 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2351 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2352 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2353 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2354
2355 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2356 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2357 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2358 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2359 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2360 interface with this new feature are:
2361
2362 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2363 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2364
2365 * New commands
2366
2367 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2368 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2369 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2370 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2371 as "maint demangler-warning".
2372
2373 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2374 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2375
2376 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2377 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2378 scripts.
2379
2380 maint print user-registers
2381 List all currently available "user" registers.
2382
2383 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2384 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2385 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2386
2387 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2388 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2389 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2390 provided.
2391
2392 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2393 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2394 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2395 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2396 at resume time.
2397
2398 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2399 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2400 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2401 switched threads meanwhile.
2402
2403 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2404
2405 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2406 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2407 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2408 is now the default mode.
2409
2410 * New options
2411
2412 set debug symbol-lookup
2413 show debug symbol-lookup
2414 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2415
2416 * MI changes
2417
2418 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2419 inferiors that have exited.
2420
2421 * New targets
2422
2423 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2424
2425 * Removed targets
2426
2427 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2428
2429 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2430 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2431 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2432 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2433 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2434
2435 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2436 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2437 its alias "share", instead.
2438
2439 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2440
2441 * New command line options
2442
2443 -D data-directory
2444 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2445
2446 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2447 as specified in ISO C99.
2448
2449 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2450 with or without disassembly.
2451
2452 * Guile scripting
2453
2454 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2455 available is determined at configure time.
2456 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2457 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2458
2459 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2460
2461 guile [code]
2462 gu [code]
2463 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2464
2465 guile-repl
2466 gr
2467 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
2468
2469 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
2470 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
2471
2472 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
2473 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
2474
2475 * New options
2476
2477 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
2478 show print symbol-loading
2479 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
2480 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
2481 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
2482 becomes less useful.
2483
2484 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
2485 show guile print-stack
2486 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
2487
2488 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
2489 show auto-load guile-scripts
2490 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
2491
2492 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
2493 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
2494 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
2495 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
2496 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
2497 usage of this option.
2498
2499 set auto-connect-native-target
2500
2501 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
2502 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
2503 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
2504
2505 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
2506 show record btrace replay-memory-access
2507 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
2508
2509 maint set target-async (on|off)
2510 maint show target-async
2511 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
2512 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
2513 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
2514 occurring only in synchronous mode.
2515
2516 set mi-async (on|off)
2517 show mi-async
2518 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
2519 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
2520
2521 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
2522 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
2523
2524 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
2525 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
2526 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
2527 "set target-async on" command.
2528
2529 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2530
2531 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
2532 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
2533 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
2534 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
2535 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
2536
2537 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
2538 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
2539 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
2540
2541 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
2542 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
2543 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2544 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2545 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2546 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2547 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2548
2549 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2550 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2551
2552 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2553 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2554 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2555
2556 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2557 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2558 memory or registers.
2559
2560 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2561
2562 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2563 remote. It now works with all targets.
2564
2565 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2566 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2567 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2568 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2569 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2570 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2571 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2572 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2573 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2574 target-stack".
2575
2576 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2577 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2578 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2579
2580 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2581
2582 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2583 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2584 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2585
2586 * New remote packets
2587
2588 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2589 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2590 branch trace incrementally.
2591
2592 * Python Scripting
2593
2594 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2595 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2596 available.
2597 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2598 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2599 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2600 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2601 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2602
2603 * New targets
2604 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2605
2606 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2607 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2608 its alias "share", instead.
2609
2610 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2611 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2612 instead.
2613
2614 * MI changes
2615
2616 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2617 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2618 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2619 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2620 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2621 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2622 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2623 commands and CLI execution commands.
2624
2625 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2626
2627 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2628 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2629 recording has been added.
2630
2631 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2632
2633 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2634 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2635
2636 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2637 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2638 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2639 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2640 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2641 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2642 "void".
2643
2644 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2645
2646 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2647
2648 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2649 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2650 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2651 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2652
2653 (gdb) p $rax
2654 $1 = <not saved>
2655
2656 (gdb) info registers rax
2657 rax <not saved>
2658
2659 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2660 "*value not available*".
2661
2662 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2663 to binaries.
2664
2665 * Python scripting
2666
2667 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2668 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2669 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2670 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2671 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2672 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2673
2674 * New targets
2675
2676 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2677 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2678 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2679
2680 * Removed native configurations
2681
2682 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2683 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2684
2685 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2686 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2687 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2688 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2689 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2690 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2691 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2692
2693 * New commands:
2694 catch rethrow
2695 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2696 maint check-psymtabs
2697 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2698 maint check-symtabs
2699 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2700 maint expand-symtabs
2701 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2702
2703 show configuration
2704 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2705
2706 maint set|show per-command
2707 maint set|show per-command space
2708 maint set|show per-command time
2709 maint set|show per-command symtab
2710 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2711
2712 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2713 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2714 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2715 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2716 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2717
2718 info exceptions
2719 info exceptions REGEXP
2720 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2721 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2722 are listed.
2723
2724 * New options
2725
2726 set debug symfile off|on
2727 show debug symfile
2728 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2729 symbol tables within those files
2730
2731 set print raw frame-arguments
2732 show print raw frame-arguments
2733 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2734 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2735
2736 set remote trace-status-packet
2737 show remote trace-status-packet
2738 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2739
2740 set debug nios2
2741 show debug nios2
2742 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2743
2744 set range-stepping
2745 show range-stepping
2746 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2747
2748 set startup-with-shell
2749 show startup-with-shell
2750 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2751 directly.
2752
2753 set code-cache
2754 show code-cache
2755 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2756 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2757
2758 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2759 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2760 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2761 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2762 "set height 0".
2763
2764 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2765 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2766 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2767
2768 * New command-line options
2769 --configuration
2770 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2771
2772 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2773 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2774
2775 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2776 GDB command gcore.
2777
2778 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2779
2780 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2781 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2782
2783 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2784 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2785
2786 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2787 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2788 due to an uncaught signal.
2789
2790 * MI changes
2791
2792 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2793 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2794 command, which should contain "language-option".
2795
2796 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2797 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2798
2799 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2800 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2801 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2802 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2803 "undefined-command-error-code".
2804
2805 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2806 Trace Format now.
2807
2808 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2809
2810 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2811 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2812 are displayed.
2813
2814 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2815 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2816
2817 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2818 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2819 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2820
2821 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2822 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2823 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2824 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2825 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2826 "exec-run-start-option".
2827
2828 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2829 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2830
2831 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2832 the new "info exceptions" command.
2833
2834 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2835 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2836 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2837 ** ElinOS
2838 ** Wind River Linux
2839
2840 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2841 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2842 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2843 below.
2844
2845 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2846 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2847
2848 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2849 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2850 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2851
2852 * New remote packets
2853
2854 vCont;r
2855
2856 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2857 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2858 involvemement at each single-step.
2859
2860 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2861 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2862 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2863 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2864 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2865 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2866 speedup.
2867
2868 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2869
2870 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2871 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2872
2873 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2874 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2875 trace state variables.
2876
2877 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2878 target.
2879
2880 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2881 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2882
2883 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2884
2885 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2886 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2887 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2888 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2889
2890 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2891
2892 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2893 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2894 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2895 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2896
2897 set|show record full insn-number-max
2898 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2899 set|show record full memory-query
2900
2901 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2902 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2903 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2904 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2905 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2906
2907 record btrace
2908
2909 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2910 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2911
2912 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2913 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2914 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2915
2916 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2917 instruction granularity
2918
2919 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2920 function granularity
2921
2922 * New native configurations
2923
2924 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2925 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2926 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2927 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2928
2929 * New targets
2930
2931 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2932 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2933 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2934 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2935 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2936
2937 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2938 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2939 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2940 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2941 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2942 --data-directory command-line option.
2943
2944 * New command line options:
2945
2946 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2947 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2948
2949 * Removed command line options
2950
2951 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2952 Emacs.
2953
2954 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2955 type formatting.
2956
2957 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2958
2959 * Python scripting
2960
2961 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2962
2963 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2964
2965 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2966
2967 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2968
2969 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2970 of architecture in the Python API.
2971
2972 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2973 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2974
2975 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2976
2977 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2978 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2979 ** $_strlen(str)
2980 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2981
2982 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2983 given an argument.
2984
2985 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2986 default for GCC since November 2000.
2987
2988 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2989
2990 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2991 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2992
2993 * New configure options
2994
2995 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2996 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2997 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2998 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2999 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
3000 options allow the user to override that default.
3001 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
3002 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
3003 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
3004
3005 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3006
3007 catch signal
3008 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
3009 conditions to be attached.
3010
3011 maint info bfds
3012 List the BFDs known to GDB.
3013
3014 python-interactive [command]
3015 pi [command]
3016 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
3017 and print the result of expressions.
3018
3019 py [command]
3020 "py" is a new alias for "python".
3021
3022 enable type-printer [name]...
3023 disable type-printer [name]...
3024 Enable or disable type printers.
3025
3026 * Removed commands
3027
3028 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
3029 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
3030 instead.
3031
3032 * New options
3033
3034 set print type methods (on|off)
3035 show print type methods
3036 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
3037 The default is to show them.
3038
3039 set print type typedefs (on|off)
3040 show print type typedefs
3041 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
3042 The default is to show them.
3043
3044 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
3045 show filename-display
3046 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
3047 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
3048
3049 set trace-buffer-size
3050 show trace-buffer-size
3051 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
3052
3053 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
3054 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
3055 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
3056
3057 set debug aarch64
3058 show debug aarch64
3059 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
3060 The default is off.
3061
3062 set debug coff-pe-read
3063 show debug coff-pe-read
3064 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
3065 exported symbols.
3066
3067 set debug mach-o
3068 show debug mach-o
3069 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
3070 processing.
3071
3072 set debug notification
3073 show debug notification
3074 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
3075
3076 * MI changes
3077
3078 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
3079 "=cmd-param-changed".
3080 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
3081 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
3082 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
3083 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
3084 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
3085 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
3086 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
3087 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
3088 "=memory-changed".
3089 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
3090 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
3091 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
3092 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3093 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
3094 library load/unload events.
3095 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
3096 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
3097 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
3098 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
3099 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
3100 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
3101 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
3102 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
3103
3104 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
3105 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
3106 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
3107 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
3108
3109 * New remote packets
3110
3111 QTBuffer:size
3112 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
3113 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3114
3115 Qbtrace:bts
3116 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
3117 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
3118 qSupported query.
3119
3120 Qbtrace:off
3121 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
3122 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3123
3124 qXfer:btrace:read
3125 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
3126 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3127
3128 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
3129
3130 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
3131 for more x32 ABI info.
3132
3133 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
3134
3135 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
3136
3137 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
3138 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
3139 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
3140 "info os files" lists file descriptors
3141 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
3142 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
3143 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
3144 "info os msg" lists message queues
3145 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
3146
3147 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
3148 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
3149 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
3150 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
3151 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
3152 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
3153
3154 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
3155 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
3156 record/replay support.
3157
3158 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
3159
3160 * Python scripting
3161
3162 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
3163 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
3164
3165 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
3166
3167 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
3168 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
3169
3170 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
3171
3172 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
3173 the source at which the symbol was defined.
3174
3175 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
3176 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
3177 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
3178 symbol's value.
3179
3180 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
3181 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
3182
3183 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
3184 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
3185 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
3186
3187 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
3188 object associated with a PC value.
3189
3190 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
3191 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
3192
3193 * Go language support.
3194 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
3195 language.
3196
3197 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
3198 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
3199
3200 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
3201 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
3202
3203 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
3204 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
3205 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
3206 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
3207 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
3208 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
3209
3210 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
3211 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
3212 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
3213 build/libcpp/expr.c.
3214
3215 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
3216 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
3217
3218 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
3219 since December 2007.
3220
3221 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
3222 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
3223 command does. For instance:
3224
3225 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
3226
3227 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
3228 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
3229 created, using the "condition" command.
3230
3231 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
3232 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
3233
3234 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
3235
3236 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
3237 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
3238 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
3239 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
3240 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
3241 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
3242 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
3243 files with older .gdb_index sections.
3244
3245 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
3246 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
3247 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
3248 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
3249 the .gdb_index section.
3250
3251 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
3252
3253 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
3254 target.
3255
3256 * MI changes
3257
3258 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
3259
3260 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
3261
3262 * New commands
3263
3264 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3265 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3266 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
3267
3268 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
3269 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
3270
3271 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3272 several hits.
3273
3274 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3275 C++ and Java objects.
3276
3277 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3278 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3279 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3280 configured with '--with-python'.
3281
3282 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3283 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3284 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3285 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3286 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3287 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3288 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3289
3290 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3291 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3292 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3293 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3294
3295 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3296 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3297 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3298 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3299
3300 ** "set print symbol"
3301 "show print symbol"
3302 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3303 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3304 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3305
3306 * Deprecated commands
3307
3308 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3309 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3310
3311 * New targets
3312
3313 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3314 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3315
3316 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3317 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3318 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3319 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3320 evaluates to true.
3321
3322 * New options
3323
3324 set mips compression
3325 show mips compression
3326 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3327 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3328 mips16
3329 micromips
3330 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3331
3332 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3333 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3334 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3335 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3336 available mode.
3337 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3338 target.
3339
3340 set auto-load off
3341 Disable auto-loading globally.
3342
3343 show auto-load
3344 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3345
3346 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3347 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3348 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3349
3350 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3351 show auto-load python-scripts
3352 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3353
3354 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3355 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3356 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3357
3358 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3359 show auto-load libthread-db
3360 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3361
3362 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3363 show auto-load scripts-directory
3364 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3365 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3366 of the directories listed by this option.
3367 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3368
3369 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3370 show auto-load safe-path
3371 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3372 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3373
3374 set debug auto-load on|off
3375 show debug auto-load
3376 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3377
3378 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3379 show dprintf-style
3380 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3381 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3382 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3383 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3384
3385 set dprintf-function <expr>
3386 show dprintf-function
3387 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3388 show dprintf-channel
3389 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3390 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3391
3392 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3393 show disconnected-dprintf
3394 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3395 after GDB disconnects.
3396
3397 * New configure options
3398
3399 --with-auto-load-dir
3400 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3401 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3402 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3403 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3404 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3405
3406 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3407 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3408 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3409
3410 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3411 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3412 security feature.
3413
3414 * New remote packets
3415
3416 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3417
3418 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3419 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3420 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3421 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3422
3423 QProgramSignals:
3424
3425 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3426 program without GDB involvement.
3427
3428 * New command line options
3429
3430 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3431 before loading inferior.
3432 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3433 execute it before loading inferior.
3434
3435 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3436
3437 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3438 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3439 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3440 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3441 inferior changes.
3442
3443 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3444 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3445
3446 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3447 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3448 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3449 target hardware watchpoint.
3450
3451 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3452 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3453 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3454 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3455
3456 * Python scripting
3457
3458 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3459 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3460 existing one.
3461
3462 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3463 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3464 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
3465 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
3466 now "message", which just prints the error message without
3467 the stack trace.
3468
3469 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3470 Python API.
3471
3472 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
3473 modules library. This module provides functionality for
3474 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
3475 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
3476 corresponding value.
3477
3478 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
3479 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
3480 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
3481 on GDB start-up.
3482
3483 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
3484 static_block will return the global and static blocks
3485 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
3486 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
3487
3488 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
3489
3490 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
3491 "gdb.breakpoints".
3492
3493 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
3494 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
3495 available in the CLI.
3496
3497 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
3498 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
3499 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
3500 "some_type.items()".
3501
3502 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
3503 new object file.
3504
3505 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
3506 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
3507 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
3508 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
3509 any anonymous fields.
3510
3511 * MI changes
3512
3513 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
3514 "solib-event".
3515
3516 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
3517 "=breakpoint-modified".
3518
3519 ** New command -ada-task-info.
3520
3521 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
3522 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
3523 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
3524 lives.
3525
3526 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
3527 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
3528 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
3529 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
3530 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
3531
3532 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
3533 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
3534
3535 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
3536 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
3537 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
3538 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
3539 use this option to specify where to find it.
3540
3541 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3542 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
3543 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3544 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3545 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3546 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3547 section in the user manual for more details.
3548
3549 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3550 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3551 become available after that.
3552
3553 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3554
3555 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3556 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3557 gcc version 4.7.
3558
3559 * New commands
3560
3561 !SHELL COMMAND
3562 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3563 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3564
3565 * Changed commands
3566
3567 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3568 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3569 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3570
3571 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3572 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3573 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3574
3575 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3576 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3577 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3578 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3579 name starts with a hyphen.
3580
3581 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3582 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3583 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3584 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3585 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3586 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3587 number of bytes that will be collected.
3588
3589 tstart [NOTES]
3590 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3591 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3592 setting the variable trace-notes.
3593
3594 tstop [NOTES]
3595 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3596 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3597 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3598 trace-stop-notes.
3599
3600 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3601 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3602 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3603 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3604 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3605 is running.
3606
3607 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3608 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3609 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3610
3611 * New options
3612
3613 set debug dwarf2-read
3614 show debug dwarf2-read
3615 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3616 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3617
3618 set debug symtab-create
3619 show debug symtab-create
3620 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3621 creation. The default is off.
3622
3623 set extended-prompt
3624 show extended-prompt
3625 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3626 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3627 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3628 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3629 prompt is displayed.
3630
3631 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3632 show print entry-values
3633 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3634 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3635 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3636
3637 set debug entry-values
3638 show debug entry-values
3639 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3640 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3641
3642 set basenames-may-differ
3643 show basenames-may-differ
3644 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3645 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3646 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3647 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3648 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3649 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3650 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3651 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3652
3653 set trace-user
3654 show trace-user
3655 set trace-notes
3656 show trace-notes
3657 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3658 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3659 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3660 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3661
3662 set trace-stop-notes
3663 show trace-stop-notes
3664 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3665 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3666 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3667 started by someone else.
3668
3669 * New remote packets
3670
3671 QTEnable
3672
3673 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3674
3675 QTDisable
3676
3677 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3678
3679 QTNotes
3680
3681 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3682
3683 qTP
3684
3685 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3686
3687 qTMinFTPILen
3688
3689 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3690 be placed.
3691
3692 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3693 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3694
3695 * New targets
3696
3697 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3698
3699 * New Simulators
3700
3701 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3702
3703 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3704
3705 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3706
3707 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3708
3709 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3710 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3711 matches the given regular expression.
3712
3713 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3714
3715 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3716 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3717
3718 * New command line options
3719
3720 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3721 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3722
3723 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3724 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3725
3726 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3727 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3728 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3729
3730 * GDB now understands thread names.
3731
3732 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3733 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3734
3735 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3736 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3737
3738 * OpenCL C
3739 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3740 has been integrated into GDB.
3741
3742 * Python scripting
3743
3744 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3745 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3746 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3747
3748 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3749 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3750 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3751 and allows for more dynamic content.
3752
3753 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3754 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3755 have an is_valid method.
3756
3757 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3758 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3759 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3760
3761 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3762
3763 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3764 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3765 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3766 that function like so:
3767
3768 result = some_value (10,20)
3769
3770 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3771 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3772 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3773
3774 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3775 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3776 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3777 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3778 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3779
3780 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3781 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3782
3783 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3784
3785 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3786 selected thread.
3787
3788 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3789 holds the thread's name.
3790
3791 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3792 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3793 occurring in the process being debugged.
3794 The following events are currently supported:
3795 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3796 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3797 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3798
3799 * C++ Improvements:
3800
3801 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3802 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3803
3804 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3805
3806 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3807 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3808 was added to GCC 4.5.
3809
3810 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3811 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3812 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3813 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3814 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3815 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3816
3817 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3818 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3819 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3820 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3821 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3822
3823 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3824 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3825 execution to a label.
3826
3827 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3828 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3829 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3830 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3831
3832 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3833 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3834 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3835 of scope.
3836
3837 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3838
3839 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3840 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3841 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3842 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3843 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3844 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3845
3846 (gdb) info threads
3847 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3848
3849 While now you see this:
3850
3851 (gdb) info threads
3852 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3853
3854 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3855 dumps.
3856
3857 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3858 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3859 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3860 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3861
3862 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3863 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3864 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3865 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3866 section in the user manual for more details.
3867
3868 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3869
3870 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3871 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3872
3873 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3874
3875 * New native configurations
3876
3877 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3878
3879 * New targets:
3880
3881 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3882
3883 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3884 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3885 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3886 in the GDB user manual.
3887
3888 * Guile support was removed.
3889
3890 * New features in the GNU simulator
3891
3892 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3893
3894 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3895
3896 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3897
3898 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3899
3900 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3901 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3902 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3903 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3904 was always disabled for such configurations.
3905
3906 * C++ Improvements:
3907
3908 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3909
3910 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3911 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3912 For example:
3913 namespace A
3914 {
3915 class B { };
3916 void foo (B) { }
3917 }
3918 ...
3919 A::B b
3920 foo(b)
3921 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3922 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3923 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3924
3925 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3926
3927 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3928 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3929 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3930 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3931 entry.
3932 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3933 mentioned flavors of operators.
3934
3935 ** static const class members
3936
3937 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3938 class definition has been fixed.
3939
3940 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3941
3942 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3943 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3944 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3945 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3946 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3947 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3948
3949 * Static tracepoints
3950
3951 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3952 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3953 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3954 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3955 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3956 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3957 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3958 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3959 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3960 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3961 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3962 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3963 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3964 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3965 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3966 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3967 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3968 the "New remote packets" section below.
3969
3970 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3971
3972 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3973 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3974 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3975 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3976
3977 * Observer mode
3978
3979 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3980 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3981 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3982 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3983 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3984 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3985 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3986
3987 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3988 current thread.
3989
3990 * New remote packets
3991
3992 qGetTIBAddr
3993
3994 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3995
3996 qRelocInsn
3997
3998 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3999 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
4000 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
4001 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
4002 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
4003 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
4004
4005 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
4006
4007 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
4008
4009 qTSTMat
4010
4011 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
4012 program.
4013
4014 qXfer:statictrace:read
4015
4016 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
4017 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
4018 to gdb's qSupported query.
4019
4020 QAllow
4021
4022 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
4023
4024 QTDPsrc
4025
4026 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
4027 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
4028
4029 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
4030 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
4031 a directory.
4032
4033 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4034
4035 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
4036 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
4037 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
4038 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
4039
4040 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
4041 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
4042 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
4043 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
4044 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
4045 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
4046 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
4047
4048 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
4049 for static tracepoints support.
4050
4051 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
4052
4053 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
4054 it understands register description.
4055
4056 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
4057
4058 * X86 general purpose registers
4059
4060 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
4061 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
4062 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
4063 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
4064 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
4065
4066 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
4067 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
4068 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
4069 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
4070 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
4071 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
4072
4073 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
4074 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
4075 in the specified file.
4076
4077 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
4078 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
4079 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
4080 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
4081 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
4082 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
4083 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
4084 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
4085 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
4086 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
4087
4088 * New commands
4089
4090 eval template, expressions...
4091 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
4092 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
4093
4094 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
4095 show target-file-system-kind
4096 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
4097 names.
4098
4099 save breakpoints <filename>
4100 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
4101 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
4102 definitions, use the `source' command.
4103
4104 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
4105 is now deprecated.
4106
4107 info static-tracepoint-markers
4108 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
4109
4110 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
4111 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
4112 function, line, address, or marker ID.
4113
4114 set observer on|off
4115 show observer
4116 Enable and disable observer mode.
4117
4118 set may-write-registers on|off
4119 set may-write-memory on|off
4120 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
4121 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
4122 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
4123 set may-interrupt on|off
4124 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
4125 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
4126 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
4127 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
4128 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
4129 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
4130 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
4131
4132 set record memory-query on|off
4133 show record memory-query
4134 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
4135 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
4136
4137 * Changed commands
4138
4139 disassemble
4140 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
4141
4142 * Python scripting
4143
4144 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
4145 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
4146 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
4147 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
4148 GDB using Python' in the manual.
4149
4150 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
4151 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
4152 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
4153 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
4154
4155 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
4156 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
4157
4158 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
4159
4160 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
4161
4162 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
4163
4164 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
4165 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
4166 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
4167
4168 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
4169 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
4170 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
4171 regular breakpoints.
4172
4173 * New targets
4174
4175 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
4176
4177 * D language support.
4178 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
4179 language.
4180
4181 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
4182 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
4183 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
4184 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
4185 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
4186
4187 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
4188 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
4189 conditions of the form:
4190
4191 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
4192
4193 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
4194 interface mentioned above.
4195
4196 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
4197
4198 * C++ Improvements
4199
4200 ** Namespace Support
4201
4202 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
4203 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
4204 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
4205 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
4206 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
4207
4208 ** Bug Fixes
4209
4210 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
4211 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
4212 qualified name.
4213
4214 ** Cast Operators
4215
4216 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
4217 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
4218
4219 * New targets
4220
4221 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
4222 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
4223
4224 * New Simulators
4225
4226 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
4227 Renesas RX rx
4228
4229 * Multi-program debugging.
4230
4231 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
4232 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
4233 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
4234 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
4235 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
4236 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
4237 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
4238 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
4239
4240 * New tracing features
4241
4242 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
4243
4244 ** Trace state variables
4245
4246 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
4247 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
4248 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
4249 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
4250 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
4251 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
4252 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
4253 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
4254 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
4255 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
4256
4257 ** Fast tracepoints
4258
4259 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
4260 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
4261 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
4262 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
4263 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
4264 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
4265 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
4266 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
4267 the regular trace command.
4268
4269 ** Disconnected tracing
4270
4271 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4272 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4273 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4274 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4275 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4276
4277 ** Trace files
4278
4279 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4280 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4281 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4282 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4283 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4284 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4285 <name>".
4286
4287 ** Circular trace buffer
4288
4289 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4290 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4291 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4292 not be available for all target agents.
4293
4294 * Changed commands
4295
4296 disassemble
4297 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4298 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4299
4300 info variables
4301 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4302 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4303
4304 source
4305 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4306 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4307 support.
4308
4309 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4310 "set script-extension" (see below).
4311
4312 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4313
4314 record save [<FILENAME>]
4315 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4316 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4317
4318 record restore <FILENAME>
4319 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4320 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4321
4322 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4323 Add a new inferior.
4324
4325 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4326 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4327 inferior has loaded.
4328
4329 remove-inferior ID
4330 Remove an inferior.
4331
4332 maint info program-spaces
4333 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4334
4335 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4336 show remote interrupt-sequence
4337 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4338 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4339 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4340 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4341 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4342
4343 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4344 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4345 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4346 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4347 Linux kernel.
4348
4349 set remotebreak [on | off]
4350 show remotebreak
4351 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4352
4353 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4354 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4355
4356 info tvariables
4357 List trace state variables and their values.
4358
4359 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4360 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4361
4362 teval EXPR, ...
4363 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4364 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4365
4366 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4367 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4368
4369 * New expression syntax
4370
4371 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4372 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4373
4374 * New options
4375
4376 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4377 show follow-exec-mode
4378 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4379 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4380 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4381
4382 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4383 show default-collect
4384 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4385 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4386 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4387
4388 set disconnected-tracing
4389 show disconnected-tracing
4390 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4391 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4392 upon disconnection.
4393
4394 set circular-trace-buffer
4395 show circular-trace-buffer
4396 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4397 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4398 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4399 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4400
4401 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4402 show script-extension
4403 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4404 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4405 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4406 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4407 evaluation failed.
4408 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4409
4410 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4411 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4412 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4413 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4414 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4415 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4416 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4417 is on.
4418
4419 * Python API Improvements
4420
4421 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4422 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4423 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4424
4425 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4426 `is_base_class' attribute.
4427
4428 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4429
4430 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4431 evaluate an expression.
4432
4433 * New remote packets
4434
4435 QTDV
4436 Define a trace state variable.
4437
4438 qTV
4439 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4440
4441 QTDisconnected
4442 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4443
4444 QTBuffer:circular
4445 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4446
4447 qTfP, qTsP
4448 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4449
4450 * Bug fixes
4451
4452 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4453
4454 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4455 much more reliable. In particular:
4456 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4457 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4458 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4459 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4460 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4461 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4462 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4463 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4464 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
4465 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
4466 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
4467 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
4468 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
4469 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
4470 non-threaded programs.
4471
4472 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
4473 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
4474 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
4475 executable program.
4476
4477 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
4478
4479 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
4480 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
4481 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
4482 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
4483 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
4484
4485 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
4486 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
4487 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
4488 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
4489 for tracepoint actions.
4490
4491 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
4492 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
4493 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
4494
4495 * Process record and replay
4496
4497 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
4498 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
4499 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
4500 execute commands.
4501
4502 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
4503 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
4504 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
4505 reverse execution.
4506
4507 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
4508 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4509 2.6.28 or later.
4510
4511 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
4512 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
4513 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
4514 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
4515 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
4516 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
4517 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
4518 the installation instructions for more information.
4519
4520 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
4521 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
4522 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
4523 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
4524
4525 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
4526 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
4527
4528 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
4529 now complete on file names.
4530
4531 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
4532 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
4533 For instance, consider:
4534
4535 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
4536 # struct example variable;
4537 (gdb) p variable.
4538
4539 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
4540 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
4541
4542 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
4543 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4544
4545 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4546 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4547 macros.
4548
4549 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4550 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4551 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4552
4553 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4554 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4555 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4556 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4557
4558 * New remote packets
4559
4560 qSearch:memory:
4561 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4562
4563 QStartNoAckMode
4564 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4565 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4566 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4567
4568 vKill
4569 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4570 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4571
4572 qXfer:osdata:read
4573 Obtains additional operating system information
4574
4575 qXfer:siginfo:read
4576 qXfer:siginfo:write
4577 Read or write additional signal information.
4578
4579 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4580
4581 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4582 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4583 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4584
4585 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4586 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4587
4588 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4589 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4590 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4591
4592 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4593 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4594
4595 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4596
4597 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4598
4599 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4600 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4601
4602 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
4603 list of section offsets.
4604
4605 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4606 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4607 have also been fixed.
4608
4609 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4610 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4611 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4612
4613 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4614 example, given:
4615
4616 template<typename T> class C { };
4617 C<char const *> c;
4618
4619 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4620
4621 ptype C<char const *>
4622 ptype C<char const*>
4623 ptype C<const char *>
4624 ptype C<const char*>
4625
4626 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4627
4628 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4629 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4630
4631 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4632 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4633 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4634
4635 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4636 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4637
4638 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4639 gdbserver.
4640
4641 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4642 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4643
4644 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4645 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4646 as appropriate.
4647
4648 * Python scripting
4649
4650 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4651 available is determined at configure time.
4652
4653 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4654
4655 * Ada tasking support
4656
4657 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4658 been introduced:
4659
4660 info tasks
4661 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4662 info task N
4663 Print detailed information about task number N.
4664 task
4665 Print the task number of the current task.
4666 task N
4667 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4668
4669 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4670 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4671
4672 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4673
4674 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4675 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4676 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4677 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4678 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4679 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4680 below.
4681
4682 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4683 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4684 information.
4685
4686 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4687 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4688 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4689 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4690 more information.
4691
4692 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4693
4694 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4695 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4696 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4697 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4698 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4699
4700 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4701 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4702 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4703 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4704 --enable-targets configure option.
4705
4706 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4707
4708 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4709 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4710 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4711 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4712 section in the user manual for more information.
4713
4714 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4715 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4716 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4717 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4718 extensions on linux targets.
4719
4720 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4721
4722 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4723 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4724 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4725 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4726 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4727 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4728 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4729 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4730 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4731
4732 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4733 val1 [, val2, ...]
4734 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4735
4736 maint set python print-stack
4737 maint show python print-stack
4738 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4739
4740 python [CODE]
4741 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4742
4743 macro define
4744 macro list
4745 macro undef
4746 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4747 interactively.
4748
4749 info os processes
4750 Show operating system information about processes.
4751
4752 info inferiors
4753 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4754
4755 inferior NUM
4756 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4757
4758 detach inferior NUM
4759 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4760
4761 kill inferior NUM
4762 Kill inferior number NUM.
4763
4764 * New options
4765
4766 set spu stop-on-load
4767 show spu stop-on-load
4768 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4769
4770 set spu auto-flush-cache
4771 show spu auto-flush-cache
4772 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4773 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4774
4775 set sh calling-convention
4776 show sh calling-convention
4777 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4778
4779 set debug timestamp
4780 show debug timestamp
4781 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4782
4783 set disassemble-next-line
4784 show disassemble-next-line
4785 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4786 the debuggee stops.
4787
4788 set remote noack-packet
4789 show remote noack-packet
4790 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4791 under "New remote packets."
4792
4793 set remote query-attached-packet
4794 show remote query-attached-packet
4795 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4796
4797 set remote read-siginfo-object
4798 show remote read-siginfo-object
4799 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4800 packet.
4801
4802 set remote write-siginfo-object
4803 show remote write-siginfo-object
4804 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4805 packet.
4806
4807 set remote reverse-continue
4808 show remote reverse-continue
4809 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4810
4811 set remote reverse-step
4812 show remote reverse-step
4813 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4814
4815 set displaced-stepping
4816 show displaced-stepping
4817 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4818 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4819 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4820
4821 set debug displaced
4822 show debug displaced
4823 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4824
4825 maint set internal-error
4826 maint show internal-error
4827 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4828
4829 maint set internal-warning
4830 maint show internal-warning
4831 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4832
4833 set exec-wrapper
4834 show exec-wrapper
4835 unset exec-wrapper
4836 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4837
4838 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4839 show multiple-symbols
4840 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4841 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4842 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4843
4844 set breakpoint always-inserted
4845 show breakpoint always-inserted
4846 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4847 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4848 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4849
4850 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4851 show arm fallback-mode
4852 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4853 show arm force-mode
4854 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4855 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4856 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4857 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4858
4859 set disable-randomization
4860 show disable-randomization
4861 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4862 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4863 multiple debugging sessions.
4864
4865 set non-stop
4866 show non-stop
4867 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4868 a breakpoint.
4869
4870 set target-async
4871 show target-async
4872 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4873 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4874 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4875 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4876
4877 set target-wide-charset
4878 show target-wide-charset
4879 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4880 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4881
4882 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4883 show tcp auto-retry
4884 set tcp connect-timeout
4885 show tcp connect-timeout
4886 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4887 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4888 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4889
4890 set libthread-db-search-path
4891 show libthread-db-search-path
4892 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4893 libthread_db.
4894
4895 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4896 show schedule-multiple
4897 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4898 the current process.
4899
4900 set stack-cache
4901 show stack-cache
4902 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4903 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4904 affecting correctness.
4905
4906 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4907 show interactive-mode
4908 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4909 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4910 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4911 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4912 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4913
4914 * Removed commands
4915
4916 info forks
4917 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4918 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4919 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4920 command.
4921
4922 fork NUM
4923 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4924 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4925 alias for the `fork' command.
4926
4927 process PID
4928 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4929 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4930 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4931
4932 delete fork NUM
4933 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4934 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4935 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4936 fork' command.
4937
4938 detach fork NUM
4939 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4940 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4941 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4942 fork' command.
4943
4944 * New native configurations
4945
4946 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4947
4948 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4949
4950 * New targets
4951
4952 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4953 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4954 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4955 S+core 3 score-*-*
4956
4957 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4958 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4959
4960 * Removed commands
4961
4962 catch load
4963 catch unload
4964 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4965
4966 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4967
4968 * New native configurations
4969
4970 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4971 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4972
4973 * New targets
4974
4975 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4976 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4977
4978 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4979
4980 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4981 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4982 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4983 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4984
4985 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4986 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4987
4988 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4989 is resolved.
4990
4991 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4992 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4993 and in inlined functions.
4994
4995 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4996 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4997 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4998
4999 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
5000
5001 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
5002 registers on PowerPC targets.
5003
5004 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
5005 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
5006
5007 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
5008 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
5009
5010 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
5011 extended-remote mode.
5012
5013 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
5014 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
5015 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
5016 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
5017
5018 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
5019 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
5020 target architectures.
5021
5022 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
5023 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
5024 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
5025 stored in two consecutive float registers.
5026
5027 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
5028 breakpoints now.
5029
5030 * Improved support for debugging Ada
5031 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
5032 include:
5033 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
5034 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
5035 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
5036 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
5037 of an assignment
5038 - Improved command completion in Ada
5039 - Several bug fixes
5040
5041 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
5042 process.
5043
5044 * New commands
5045
5046 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
5047 show print frame-arguments
5048 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
5049 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
5050
5051 remote put
5052 remote get
5053 remote delete
5054 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5055
5056 * New MI commands
5057
5058 -target-file-put
5059 -target-file-get
5060 -target-file-delete
5061 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
5062
5063 * New remote packets
5064
5065 vFile:open:
5066 vFile:close:
5067 vFile:pread:
5068 vFile:pwrite:
5069 vFile:unlink:
5070 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
5071
5072 vAttach
5073 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
5074 mode.
5075
5076 vRun
5077 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
5078
5079 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
5080
5081 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
5082 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
5083 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
5084
5085 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
5086 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
5087 -Bsymbolic linker option.
5088
5089 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
5090 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
5091 is not supported.
5092
5093 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
5094 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
5095
5096 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
5097 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
5098
5099 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
5100
5101 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
5102 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
5103 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
5104
5105 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
5106 automatically displayed as character or string data.
5107
5108 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
5109 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
5110 as strings.
5111
5112 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
5113 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
5114 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
5115
5116 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
5117 iWMMXt coprocessor.
5118
5119 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
5120 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
5121 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
5122
5123 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
5124
5125 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
5126
5127 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
5128 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
5129 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
5130
5131 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
5132 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
5133
5134 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
5135 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
5136 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
5137 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
5138 Windows and SymbianOS).
5139
5140 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
5141 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
5142
5143 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
5144 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
5145
5146 * New commands
5147
5148 set remoteflow
5149 show remoteflow
5150 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
5151 when debugging using remote targets.
5152
5153 set mem inaccessible-by-default
5154 show mem inaccessible-by-default
5155 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5156 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5157 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
5158 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
5159 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
5160
5161 set breakpoint auto-hw
5162 show breakpoint auto-hw
5163 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5164 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5165 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
5166 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
5167 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
5168 including "next" and "finish".
5169
5170 catch exception
5171 catch exception unhandled
5172 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
5173
5174 catch assert
5175 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
5176
5177 set sysroot
5178 show sysroot
5179 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
5180 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
5181 an alias to "set sysroot".
5182
5183 info spu
5184 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
5185 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
5186 architecture.
5187
5188 * New native configurations
5189
5190 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
5191
5192 set tdesc filename
5193 unset tdesc filename
5194 show tdesc filename
5195 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
5196 not query the target for its built-in description.
5197
5198 * New targets
5199
5200 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
5201 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
5202 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
5203
5204 * New remote packets
5205
5206 QPassSignals:
5207 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
5208 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
5209
5210 qXfer:features:read:
5211 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
5212 features.
5213
5214 qXfer:spu:read:
5215 qXfer:spu:write:
5216 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
5217 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
5218
5219 qXfer:libraries:read:
5220 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
5221 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
5222 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
5223 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
5224
5225 * Removed targets
5226
5227 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
5228
5229 alpha*-*-osf1*
5230 alpha*-*-osf2*
5231 d10v-*-*
5232 hppa*-*-hiux*
5233 i[34567]86-ncr-*
5234 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
5235 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
5236 i[34567]86-*-netware*
5237 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
5238 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
5239 i[34567]86-*-sco*
5240 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
5241 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
5242 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
5243 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
5244 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
5245 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
5246 i[34567]86-*-isc*
5247 m68*-cisco*-*
5248 m68*-tandem-*
5249 mips*-*-pe
5250 rs6000-*-lynxos*
5251 sh*-*-pe
5252
5253 * Other removed features
5254
5255 target abug
5256 target cpu32bug
5257 target est
5258 target rom68k
5259
5260 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
5261
5262 target hms
5263 target e7000
5264 target sh3
5265 target sh3e
5266
5267 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5268 H8/300.
5269
5270 target ocd
5271
5272 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5273 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5274 interfaces.
5275
5276 DWARF 1 support
5277
5278 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5279 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5280
5281 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5282
5283 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5284 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5285 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5286 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5287
5288 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5289
5290 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5291 in debugging information.
5292
5293 Scheme support
5294
5295 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5296 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5297
5298 set mips stack-arg-size
5299 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5300
5301 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5302
5303 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5304
5305 * New targets
5306
5307 Xtensa xtensa-elf
5308 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5309
5310 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5311 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5312 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5313
5314 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5315 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5316 supported.
5317
5318 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5319 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5320
5321 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5322 stub provides the required support.
5323
5324 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5325 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5326
5327 * New commands
5328
5329 set substitute-path
5330 unset substitute-path
5331 show substitute-path
5332 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5333 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5334 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5335 between compilation and debugging.
5336
5337 set trace-commands
5338 show trace-commands
5339 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5340 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5341 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5342
5343 * REMOVED features
5344
5345 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5346
5347 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5348 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5349
5350 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5351
5352 * New remote packets
5353
5354 qSupported:
5355 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5356 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5357 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5358 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5359 target.
5360
5361 qXfer:auxv:read:
5362 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5363 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5364
5365 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5366 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5367 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5368
5369 vFlashErase:
5370 vFlashWrite:
5371 vFlashDone:
5372 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5373
5374 * Removed remote packets
5375
5376 qPart:auxv:read:
5377 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5378 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5379
5380 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5381
5382 * New targets
5383
5384 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5385
5386 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5387
5388 * New commands
5389
5390 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5391 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5392
5393 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5394
5395 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5396
5397 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5398 previously saved state.
5399
5400 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5401
5402 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5403
5404 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5405 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5406
5407 info forks List forks of the user program that
5408 are available to be debugged.
5409
5410 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5411 forks of the user program that are
5412 available to be debugged.
5413
5414 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5415 that are available to be debugged (and
5416 kill the forked process).
5417
5418 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5419 that are available to be debugged (and
5420 allow the process to continue).
5421
5422 * New architecture
5423
5424 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5425
5426 * Improved Windows host support
5427
5428 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5429 native console support, and remote communications using either
5430 network sockets or serial ports.
5431
5432 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5433
5434 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5435 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5436 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5437 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5438 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5439 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5440
5441 * REMOVED features
5442
5443 The ARM rdi-share module.
5444
5445 The Netware NLM debug server.
5446
5447 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5448
5449 * New native configurations
5450
5451 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5452 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5453
5454 * New targets
5455
5456 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5457
5458 * New command line options
5459
5460 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
5461 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
5462 the child (debugged) program exited with.
5463 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
5464 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
5465 specified multiple times and in conjunction
5466 with the --command (-x) option.
5467
5468 * Deprecated commands removed
5469
5470 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
5471 removed:
5472
5473 Command Replacement
5474 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
5475 othernames set arm disassembler
5476 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
5477 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
5478 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
5479 regs info registers
5480
5481 * New BSD user-level threads support
5482
5483 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
5484 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
5485 configurations are:
5486
5487 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5488 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
5489 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
5490
5491 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
5492 are not yet supported.
5493
5494 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
5495 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
5496
5497 * REMOVED configurations and files
5498
5499 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
5500 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5501 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
5502
5503 * New "set print array-indexes" command
5504
5505 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
5506 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
5507 behavior.
5508
5509 * VAX floating point support
5510
5511 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
5512
5513 * User-defined command support
5514
5515 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
5516 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
5517 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
5518
5519 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
5520
5521 * New command line option
5522
5523 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
5524 debugging.
5525
5526 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
5527
5528 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
5529 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
5530 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
5531 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
5532 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
5533
5534 * Internationalization
5535
5536 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
5537 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
5538 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
5539
5540 * Ada
5541
5542 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
5543 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5544 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5545
5546 * New native configurations
5547
5548 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5549
5550 * Remote 'p' packet
5551
5552 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5553 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5554
5555 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5556
5557 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5558 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5559 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5560 i386 application).
5561
5562 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
5563 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5564 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5565 configurations:
5566
5567 hppa-*-hpux
5568 ia64-*-aix
5569 mips-*-irix*
5570 *-*-lynx
5571 mips-*-linux-gnu
5572 sds protocol
5573 xdr protocol
5574 powerpc bdm protocol
5575
5576 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5577 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5578
5579 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5580
5581 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5582 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5583 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5584 permanently REMOVED.
5585
5586 h8300-*-*
5587 mcore-*-*
5588 mn10300-*-*
5589 ns32k-*-*
5590 sh64-*-*
5591 v850-*-*
5592
5593 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5594
5595 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5596
5597 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5598 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5599 been fixed.
5600
5601 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5602
5603 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5604 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5605 IRIX long double values).
5606
5607 * VAX and "next"
5608
5609 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5610 command. This problem has been fixed.
5611
5612 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5613
5614 * Fix for ``many threads''
5615
5616 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5617 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5618 error message:
5619
5620 ptrace: No such process.
5621 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5622
5623 This problem has been fixed.
5624
5625 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5626
5627 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5628 GDB to dump core).
5629
5630 * New ``start'' command.
5631
5632 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
5633
5634 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5635
5636 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5637 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5638 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5639
5640 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5641 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5642 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5643 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5644 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5645 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5646 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5647 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5648 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5649
5650 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5651
5652 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5653 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5654 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5655 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5656 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5657
5658 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5659 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5660 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5661
5662 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5663
5664 * New native configurations
5665
5666 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5667 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5668 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5669 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5670 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5671 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5672 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5673
5674 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5675
5676 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5677 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5678 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5679 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5680 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5681 work, was also included.
5682
5683 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5684 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5685
5686 h8300-*-*
5687 mcore-*-*
5688 mn10300-*-*
5689 ns32k-*-*
5690 sh64-*-*
5691 v850-*-*
5692 xstormy16-*-*
5693
5694 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5695 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5696
5697 * REMOVED configurations and files
5698
5699 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5700 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5701 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5702 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5703 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5704 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5705 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5706 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5707 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5708 sonymips mips-sony-*
5709 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5710
5711 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5712
5713 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5714
5715 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5716 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5717 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5718 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5719 with GDB".
5720
5721 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5722
5723 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5724 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5725 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5726 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5727 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5728 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5729 are created.
5730
5731 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5732
5733 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5734
5735 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5736 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5737 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5738
5739 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5740
5741 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5742 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5743
5744 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5745
5746 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5747 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5748 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5749
5750 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5751
5752 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5753 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5754
5755 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5756
5757 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5758 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5759 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5760
5761 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5762
5763 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5764 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5765 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5766
5767 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5768
5769 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5770
5771 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5772 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5773
5774 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5775
5776 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5777 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5778 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5779 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5780
5781 * Revised SPARC target
5782
5783 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5784 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5785 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5786 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5787 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5788
5789 * New C++ demangler
5790
5791 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5792 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5793 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5794 programs.
5795
5796 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5797
5798 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5799 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5800 encountered these.
5801
5802 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5803
5804 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5805 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5806 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5807 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5808 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5809 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5810 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5811 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5812 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5813
5814 * New native configurations
5815
5816 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5817 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5818 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5819 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5820 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5821
5822 * New debugging protocols
5823
5824 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5825
5826 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5827
5828 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5829 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5830 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5831
5832 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5833
5834 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5835 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5836 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5837 permanently REMOVED.
5838
5839 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5840 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5841 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5842 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5843 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5844 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5845 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5846 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5847 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5848 sonymips mips-sony-*
5849 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5850
5851 * REMOVED configurations and files
5852
5853 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5854 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5855 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5856 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5857 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5858 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5859 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5860 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5861 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5862 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5863 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5864 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5865 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5866 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5867 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5868 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5869 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5870
5871 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5872
5873 * Objective-C
5874
5875 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5876 integrated into GDB.
5877
5878 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5879
5880 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5881 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5882 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5883 backtraces.
5884
5885 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5886 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5887 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5888
5889 * Hosted file I/O.
5890
5891 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5892 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5893 remote protocol documentation for details.
5894
5895 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5896
5897 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5898 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5899 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5900 ppc32 on ppc64).
5901
5902 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5903
5904 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5905 per-thread variables.
5906
5907 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5908
5909 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5910 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5911
5912 * Separate debug info.
5913
5914 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5915 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5916 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5917 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5918 and optional debug files.
5919
5920 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5921
5922 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5923 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5924 debugger.
5925
5926 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5927 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5928
5929 * Java
5930
5931 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5932 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5933 considered "useable".
5934
5935 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5936
5937 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5938 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5939 kernel.
5940
5941 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5942
5943 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5944 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5945
5946 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5947
5948 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5949 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5950 command.
5951
5952 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5953
5954 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5955 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5956
5957 * Profiling support
5958
5959 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5960 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5961 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5962 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5963 data, for more informative profiling results.
5964
5965 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5966
5967 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5968 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5969 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5970
5971 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5972 removed.
5973
5974 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5975 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5976 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5977 in a subsequent -var-update.
5978
5979 * New native configurations.
5980
5981 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5982
5983 * Multi-arched targets.
5984
5985 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5986 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5987
5988 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5989
5990 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5991 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5992 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5993 permanently REMOVED.
5994
5995 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5996 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5997 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5998 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5999 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6000 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
6001 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
6002 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
6003 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
6004 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
6005 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6006 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6007
6008 * REMOVED configurations and files
6009
6010 V850EA ISA
6011 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6012 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6013 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6014 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6015 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6016 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6017 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
6018 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6019 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6020 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6021 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6022 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6023 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6024
6025 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
6026
6027 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
6028 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
6029 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
6030 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
6031 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
6032
6033 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
6034
6035 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
6036
6037 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
6038 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
6039 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
6040 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
6041 shared libs like mad''.
6042
6043 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6044
6045 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
6046 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
6047 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
6048 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6049
6050 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
6051
6052 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
6053 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
6054 they expand.
6055
6056 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
6057 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
6058
6059 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
6060 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
6061
6062 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
6063 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
6064 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
6065 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
6066
6067 * Multi-arched targets.
6068
6069 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
6070 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
6071 NEC V850 v850-*-*
6072 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
6073 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
6074 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
6075
6076 * New targets.
6077
6078 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
6079
6080
6081 * New native configurations
6082
6083 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
6084 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
6085 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
6086 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
6087
6088 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6089
6090 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6091 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6092 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6093 permanently REMOVED.
6094
6095 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6096 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6097 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6098 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6099 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6100 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6101 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6102 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6103 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6104 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6105 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
6106 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6107 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6108
6109 * OBSOLETE languages
6110
6111 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
6112
6113 * REMOVED configurations and files
6114
6115 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6116 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6117 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6118 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6119 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6120
6121 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6122
6123 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
6124
6125 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
6126 commands. The default is 1024.
6127
6128 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
6129
6130 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
6131
6132 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
6133
6134 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
6135 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
6136 from a file into memory (restore).
6137
6138 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
6139
6140 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
6141 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
6142 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
6143
6144 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
6145
6146 * New targets.
6147
6148 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
6149
6150 * Bug fixes
6151
6152 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
6153 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
6154 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
6155
6156 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
6157 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
6158 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
6159
6160 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
6161 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
6162 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
6163
6164 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
6165 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
6166 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
6167
6168 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
6169
6170 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
6171
6172 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
6173 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
6174 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
6175 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
6176 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
6177 (notably embedded) targets.
6178
6179 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
6180
6181 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
6182 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
6183 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
6184 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
6185
6186 * New command line option
6187
6188 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
6189
6190 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
6191
6192 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
6193 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
6194 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
6195 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
6196 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
6197 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
6198 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
6199 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
6200 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
6201 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
6202
6203 * Changes in ARM configurations.
6204
6205 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
6206 configuration is fully multi-arch.
6207
6208 * New native configurations
6209
6210 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
6211 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
6212 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
6213 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
6214
6215 * New targets
6216
6217 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
6218
6219 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6220
6221 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6222 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6223 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6224 permanently REMOVED.
6225
6226 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6227 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6228 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6229 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6230 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6231
6232 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6233
6234 * REMOVED configurations and files
6235
6236 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6237 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6238 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6239 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6240 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6241 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6242 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6243 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6244 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6245 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6246 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6247 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6248 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
6249
6250 * Changes to command line processing
6251
6252 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
6253 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
6254
6255 * Changes to key bindings
6256
6257 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
6258
6259 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
6260
6261 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
6262
6263 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
6264 corrupted.
6265
6266 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
6267
6268 Numerous documentation fixes.
6269
6270 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6271
6272 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6273
6274 * New native configurations
6275
6276 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6277 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6278 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6279 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6280 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6281 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6282
6283 * New targets
6284
6285 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6286 CRIS cris-axis
6287 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6288
6289 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6290
6291 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6292 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6293 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6294 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6295 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6296 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6297 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6298 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6299 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6300 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6301 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6302 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6303 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6304 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6305
6306 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6307 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6308
6309 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6310 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6311 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6312 permanently REMOVED.
6313
6314 * REMOVED configurations and files
6315
6316 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6317 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6318 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6319 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6320 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6321 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
6322
6323 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6324
6325 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6326 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6327 present.
6328
6329 * Other news:
6330
6331 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6332
6333 * The MI enabled by default.
6334
6335 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6336 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6337 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6338 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6339 which is now deprecated.
6340
6341 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6342
6343 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6344 main features are supported:
6345
6346 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6347
6348 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6349 extension;
6350
6351 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6352
6353 - a Pascal expression parser.
6354
6355 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6356
6357 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6358
6359 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6360
6361 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6362 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6363
6364 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6365
6366 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6367
6368 * Changes in completion.
6369
6370 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6371 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6372 users expect at the shell prompt.
6373
6374 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6375 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6376 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6377 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6378 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6379 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6380 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6381
6382 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6383
6384 * New platform-independent commands:
6385
6386 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6387 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6388 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6389
6390 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6391
6392 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6393 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6394 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6395
6396 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6397
6398 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6399 multi-threaded programs though.
6400
6401 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6402
6403 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6404
6405 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6406 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6407 supported.)
6408
6409 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6410
6411 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6412 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6413 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6414 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6415 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6416 registers.
6417
6418 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6419 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6420 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6421
6422 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6423
6424 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6425 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6426
6427 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6428 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6429 IDT.
6430
6431 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6432 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6433 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6434 a given linear address.
6435
6436 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6437 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6438 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6439
6440 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6441
6442 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6443
6444 * Changes in documentation.
6445
6446 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6447 Documentation License.
6448
6449 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6450 manual.
6451
6452 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6453
6454 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6455 manual.
6456
6457 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6458 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6459 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
6460
6461 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
6462
6463 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
6464 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
6465 contents of this file.
6466
6467 * gdba.el deleted
6468
6469 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
6470
6471 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
6472
6473 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
6474
6475 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
6476 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
6477 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
6478 greater level of detail.
6479
6480 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
6481
6482 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
6483 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
6484 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
6485 written.
6486
6487 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
6488
6489 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
6490 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
6491 machines ``out of the box''.
6492
6493 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
6494 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
6495 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
6496 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
6497 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
6498
6499 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
6500 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
6501 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
6502 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
6503 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
6504
6505 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
6506 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
6507 also works.
6508
6509 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
6510 GDB.
6511
6512 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
6513 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
6514 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
6515 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
6516
6517 * New native configurations
6518
6519 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
6520 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6521
6522 * New targets
6523
6524 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
6525 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
6526 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
6527 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6528
6529 * OBSOLETE configurations
6530
6531 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6532 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6533 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
6534 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6535 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
6536
6537 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6538 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6539 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6540 be permanently REMOVED.
6541
6542 * Gould support removed
6543
6544 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6545
6546 * New features for SVR4
6547
6548 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6549 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6550 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6551
6552 * Many C++ enhancements
6553
6554 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6555 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6556
6557 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6558
6559 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6560 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6561 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6562 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6563
6564 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6565 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6566
6567 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6568
6569 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6570 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6571 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6572
6573 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6574 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6575
6576 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6577
6578 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6579 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6580 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6581
6582 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6583
6584 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6585 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6586 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6587
6588 * ``apropos'' command added.
6589
6590 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6591 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6592 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6593
6594 * New MI interface
6595
6596 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6597 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6598 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6599 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6600 enabled by configuring with:
6601
6602 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6603
6604 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6605
6606 * New native configurations
6607
6608 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6609 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6610 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6611
6612 * New targets
6613
6614 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6615 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6616 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6617
6618 * OBSOLETE configurations
6619
6620 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6621
6622 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6623 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6624 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6625 be permanently REMOVED.
6626
6627 * ANSI/ISO C
6628
6629 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6630 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6631 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6632 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6633 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6634 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6635 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6636 already.
6637
6638 * Readline 2.2
6639
6640 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6641
6642 * set extension-language
6643
6644 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6645 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6646 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6647 set extension-language .c c++
6648 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6649 and their associated languages.
6650
6651 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6652
6653 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6654 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6655 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6656
6657 set processor NAME
6658
6659 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6660 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6661
6662 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6663 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6664 403 IBM PowerPC 403
6665 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6666 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6667 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6668 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6669 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6670 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6671 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6672 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6673
6674 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6675 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6676 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6677 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6678
6679 * HP-UX support
6680
6681 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6682 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6683 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6684 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6685 for xdb and dbx commands.
6686
6687 * Catchpoints
6688
6689 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6690 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6691 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6692
6693 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6694 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6695 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6696
6697 * Debugging across forks
6698
6699 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6700 in the inferior.
6701
6702 * TUI
6703
6704 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6705 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6706 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6707
6708 * GDB remote protocol additions
6709
6710 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6711 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6712 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6713 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6714
6715 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6716 full 64-bit address. The command
6717
6718 set remoteaddresssize 32
6719
6720 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6721 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6722 will be discarded.
6723
6724 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6725 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6726
6727 maint packet heythere
6728
6729 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6730 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6731 time.
6732
6733 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6734 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6735 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6736
6737 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6738
6739 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6740 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6741 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6742
6743 * mask-address variable for Mips
6744
6745 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6746 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6747 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6748
6749 * Higher serial baud rates
6750
6751 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6752 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6753 to achieve all of these rates.)
6754
6755 * i960 simulator
6756
6757 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6758 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6759
6760
6761 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6762
6763 * New native configurations
6764
6765 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6766 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6767 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6768 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6769 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6770 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6771 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6772
6773 * New targets
6774
6775 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6776 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6777 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6778 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6779 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6780 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6781 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6782 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6783 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6784 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6785 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6786
6787 * New debugging protocols
6788
6789 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6790 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6791 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6792 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6793 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6794 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6795
6796 * DWARF 2
6797
6798 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6799 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6800 information.
6801
6802 * Java frontend
6803
6804 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6805 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6806
6807 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6808
6809 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6810 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6811 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6812
6813 * Live range splitting
6814
6815 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6816 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6817 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6818
6819 * Hurd support
6820
6821 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6822 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6823
6824 * ARM Thumb support
6825
6826 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6827 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6828 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6829 accordingly.
6830
6831 * MIPS16 support
6832
6833 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6834 instruction set.
6835
6836 * Overlay support
6837
6838 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6839 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6840 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6841 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6842 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6843 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6844
6845 * info symbol
6846
6847 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6848 the symbol at the specified address.
6849
6850 * Trace support
6851
6852 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6853 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6854 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6855 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6856 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6857
6858 * MIPS simulator
6859
6860 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6861 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6862 of most MIPS variants.
6863
6864 * Sparc simulator
6865
6866 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6867 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6868 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6869
6870 * set architecture
6871
6872 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6873 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6874 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6875 the possible architectures.
6876
6877 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6878
6879 * New native configurations
6880
6881 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6882 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6883 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6884 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6885 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6886 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6887
6888 * New targets
6889
6890 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6891 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6892 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6893 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6894 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6895 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6896 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6897
6898 * PowerPC simulator
6899
6900 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6901 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6902 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6903 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6904 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6905
6906 * Solaris 2.5
6907
6908 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6909
6910 * Windows 95/NT native
6911
6912 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6913 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6914 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6915 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6916 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6917
6918 * dont-repeat command
6919
6920 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6921 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6922 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6923 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6924
6925 * Send break instead of ^C
6926
6927 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6928 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6929 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6930
6931 * Remote protocol timeout
6932
6933 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6934 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6935 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6936
6937 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6938
6939 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6940 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6941 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6942 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6943 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6944
6945 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6946 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6947 automatically on hpux10.
6948
6949 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6950
6951 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6952
6953 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6954
6955 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6956 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6957 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6958 every character. The default value is 1050.
6959
6960 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6961
6962 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6963 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6964 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6965 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6966 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6967 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6968
6969 * Speedups for remote debugging
6970
6971 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6972 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6973 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6974
6975 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6976
6977 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6978 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6979
6980 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6981
6982 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6983
6984 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6985 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6986
6987 * Remote targets use caching
6988
6989 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6990 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6991 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6992 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6993 off' turns the data cache off.
6994
6995 * Remote targets may have threads
6996
6997 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6998 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6999 gdb/remote.c for details.
7000
7001 * NetROM support
7002
7003 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
7004 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
7005 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
7006 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
7007 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
7008 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
7009 sequence is something like
7010
7011 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
7012 load <prog>
7013 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
7014
7015 * Macintosh host
7016
7017 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
7018 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
7019 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
7020 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
7021 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
7022 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
7023 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
7024 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
7025
7026 * Autoconf
7027
7028 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
7029 but does simplify configuration and building.
7030
7031 * hpux10
7032
7033 GDB now supports hpux10.
7034
7035 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
7036
7037 * New native configurations
7038
7039 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
7040 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
7041 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
7042 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
7043
7044 * New targets
7045
7046 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7047 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
7048 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
7049 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
7050 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7051
7052 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
7053
7054 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
7055 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
7056 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
7057 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
7058 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
7059
7060 * Arguments to user-defined commands
7061
7062 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
7063 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
7064 trivial example:
7065 define adder
7066 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
7067
7068 To execute the command use:
7069 adder 1 2 3
7070
7071 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
7072 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
7073 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
7074
7075 * New `if' and `while' commands
7076
7077 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
7078 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
7079 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
7080 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
7081 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
7082 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
7083 if the expression is zero.
7084
7085 * Fortran source language mode
7086
7087 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
7088 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
7089 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
7090 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
7091 Fortran compilers.
7092
7093 * Better HPUX support
7094
7095 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
7096 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
7097 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
7098 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
7099 that behavior do the following before running the program:
7100
7101 adb -w a.out
7102 __dld_flags?W 0x5
7103 control-d
7104
7105 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
7106 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
7107
7108 adb -w a.out
7109 __dld_flags?W 0x4
7110 control-d
7111
7112 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
7113 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
7114 external linkage.
7115
7116 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
7117 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
7118
7119 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
7120
7121 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
7122 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
7123 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
7124 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
7125 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
7126 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
7127
7128 * New DOS host serial code
7129
7130 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
7131 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
7132 a PC's serial port.
7133
7134 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
7135
7136 * New "complete" command
7137
7138 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
7139 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
7140
7141 * Trailing space optional in prompt
7142
7143 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
7144 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
7145
7146 * Breakpoint hit counts
7147
7148 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
7149 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
7150 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
7151 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
7152 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
7153 that breakpoint.
7154
7155 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
7156
7157 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
7158 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
7159 arrays actually contain only short strings.
7160
7161 * Shared library breakpoints
7162
7163 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
7164 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
7165
7166 * Hardware watchpoints
7167
7168 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
7169 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
7170
7171 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
7172
7173 * Annotations
7174
7175 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
7176 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
7177
7178 * Improved Irix 5 support
7179
7180 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
7181
7182 * Improved HPPA support
7183
7184 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
7185
7186 * New native configurations
7187
7188 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
7189 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7190 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
7191 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
7192
7193 * New targets
7194
7195 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7196 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
7197 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
7198
7199 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
7200
7201 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
7202 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
7203
7204 * Fixes
7205
7206 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
7207 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
7208
7209 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
7210
7211 * Irix 5 is now supported
7212
7213 * HPPA support
7214
7215 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
7216 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
7217 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
7218 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
7219 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
7220
7221
7222 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
7223
7224 * User visible changes:
7225
7226 * Remote Debugging
7227
7228 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
7229 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
7230 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
7231 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
7232 debugging info for the mips target).
7233
7234 * DEC Alpha native support
7235
7236 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
7237 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
7238 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
7239 Alpha-specific notes.
7240
7241 * Preliminary thread implementation
7242
7243 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
7244
7245 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
7246
7247 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
7248 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
7249 for details).
7250
7251 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
7252
7253 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
7254 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
7255 call methods, ...etc.
7256
7257 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
7258
7259 * User visible changes:
7260
7261 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
7262 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
7263 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
7264 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
7265
7266 Filename completion now works.
7267
7268 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
7269 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
7270 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7271
7272 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7273 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7274 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7275 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7276 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7277
7278 * DEC alpha support
7279
7280 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7281 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7282
7283
7284 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7285
7286 * Testsuite
7287
7288 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7289 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7290 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7291
7292 * C++ demangling
7293
7294 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7295 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7296 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7297 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7298 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7299
7300 * Simulators
7301
7302 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7303 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7304 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7305
7306 * New targets supported
7307
7308 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7309 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7310 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7311 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7312 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7313
7314 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7315 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7316 GO32 memory extender.
7317
7318 * New remote protocols
7319
7320 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7321
7322 * New source languages supported
7323
7324 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7325 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7326 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7327
7328
7329 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7330
7331 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7332
7333 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7334 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7335 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7336 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7337 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7338 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7339
7340 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7341
7342 * Faster and better demangling
7343
7344 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7345 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7346 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7347 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7348 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7349 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7350 symbol lookups.
7351
7352 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7353 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7354 compiler does not actually implement.
7355
7356 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7357
7358 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7359 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7360 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7361 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7362 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7363 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7364 fix.
7365
7366 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7367 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7368
7369 * Improved configure script
7370
7371 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7372 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7373 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7374 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7375
7376 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7377 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7378 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7379 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7380 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7381 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7382
7383 * Documentation improvements
7384
7385 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7386 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7387 before submitting changes.
7388
7389 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7390 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7391 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7392 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7393 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7394
7395 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7396 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7397 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7398 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7399 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7400 around this problem.
7401
7402 * New features
7403
7404 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7405 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7406 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7407 the target program.
7408
7409 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7410 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7411
7412 * New native hosts supported
7413
7414 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7415 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7416
7417 * New targets supported
7418
7419 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7420
7421 * New file formats supported
7422
7423 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7424 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7425
7426 * Major bug fixes
7427
7428 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7429
7430 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7431 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7432
7433 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7434 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7435 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7436
7437 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7438 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7439
7440 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7441 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7442 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7443 libraries.
7444
7445 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7446 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7447 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7448 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7449 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7450
7451 * Internal improvements
7452
7453 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7454 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7455
7456 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7457 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7458 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7459 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
7460 shared code that handles any of them.
7461
7462 * New command line options
7463
7464 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
7465
7466 * Mmalloc licensing
7467
7468 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
7469 General Public License.
7470
7471 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
7472
7473 * Host/native/target split
7474
7475 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
7476 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
7477 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
7478 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
7479 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
7480
7481 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
7482 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
7483 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
7484 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
7485 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
7486 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
7487 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
7488
7489 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
7490 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
7491 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
7492
7493 * New hosts supported
7494
7495 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
7496 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7497 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
7498
7499 * New targets supported
7500
7501 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7502 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
7503
7504 * New native hosts supported
7505
7506 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7507 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
7508 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
7509
7510 * New file formats supported
7511
7512 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
7513 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
7514 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
7515
7516 * New commands
7517
7518 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
7519 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
7520 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
7521
7522 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
7523
7524 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
7525 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
7526 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
7527 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
7528
7529 * C++ improvements
7530
7531 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
7532 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
7533 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
7534
7535 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
7536
7537 * Major bug fixes
7538
7539 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
7540 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
7541 by the compiler.
7542
7543 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7544 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7545
7546 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7547 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7548 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7549 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7550 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7551 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7552
7553 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7554 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7555 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7556 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7557
7558 * AMD 29k support
7559
7560 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7561 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7562 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7563 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7564 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7565
7566 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7567 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7568 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7569 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7570
7571 * Remote interfaces
7572
7573 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7574 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7575 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7576 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7577 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7578 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7579 each instruction being stepped through.
7580
7581 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7582 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7583
7584 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7585 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7586 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7587 processor with a serial port.
7588
7589 * Configuration
7590
7591 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7592 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7593 supported, and what files each one uses.
7594
7595 * Library changes
7596
7597 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7598 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7599 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7600 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7601
7602 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7603 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7604 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7605 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7606
7607 * Documentation
7608
7609 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7610 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7611 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7612 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7613 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7614 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7615
7616 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7617
7618
7619 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7620
7621 * Better support for C++ function names
7622
7623 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7624 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7625 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7626 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7627 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7628
7629 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7630 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7631 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7632 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7633 for the list of formats.
7634
7635 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7636
7637 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7638 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7639 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7640 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
7641 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7642 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7643 this problem.)
7644
7645 * New 'maintenance' command
7646
7647 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7648 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7649 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7650
7651 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7652 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7653 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7654 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7655 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7656 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7657
7658 The following commands are new:
7659
7660 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7661 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7662 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7663
7664 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7665
7666 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7667 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7668 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7669 read after argv processing.
7670
7671 * New hosts supported
7672
7673 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7674
7675 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7676
7677 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7678 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7679 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7680 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7681 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7682 It costs extra.
7683
7684 * New targets supported
7685
7686 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7687
7688 * More smarts about finding #include files
7689
7690 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7691 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7692 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7693 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7694 the one that contains your sources.
7695
7696 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7697 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7698 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7699
7700 * Interesting infernals change
7701
7702 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7703 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7704 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7705 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7706
7707 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7708
7709 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7710 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7711 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7712
7713 See the ChangeLog for details.
7714
7715 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7716
7717 * New machines supported (host and target)
7718
7719 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7720
7721 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7722
7723 * New malloc package
7724
7725 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7726 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
7727 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7728 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7729 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7730 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7731
7732 * info proc
7733
7734 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7735 'help info proc' for details.
7736
7737 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7738
7739 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7740 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7741 possible.
7742
7743 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7744
7745 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7746 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7747 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7748 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7749 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7750 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7751
7752 * Cross byte order fixes
7753
7754 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7755 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7756
7757 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7758
7759 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7760 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7761 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7762 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7763 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7764 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7765 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7766 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7767 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7768 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7769
7770 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7771 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7772 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7773 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7774
7775 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7776 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7777 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7778 use is:
7779
7780 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7781
7782 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7783 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7784 shared across multiple host platforms.
7785
7786 * longjmp() handling
7787
7788 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7789 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7790 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7791 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7792
7793 * Solaris 2.0
7794
7795 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7796 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7797 reading symbols.
7798
7799 * Bug fixes
7800
7801 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7802 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7803 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7804
7805 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7806
7807 * New machines supported (host and target)
7808
7809 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7810 (except core files)
7811 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7812 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7813
7814 * New machines supported (target)
7815
7816 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7817
7818 * C++ support
7819
7820 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7821 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7822 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7823
7824 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7825 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7826 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7827 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7828 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7829 released.
7830
7831 * New features for SVR4
7832
7833 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7834 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7835 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7836
7837 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7838 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7839 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7840
7841 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7842 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7843
7844 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7845
7846 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7847 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7848 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7849 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7850 same code linked statically.
7851
7852 * New Getopt
7853
7854 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7855 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7856 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7857 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7858 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7859 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7860
7861 * Bugs fixed
7862
7863 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7864 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7865 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7866
7867
7868 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7869
7870 * New machines supported (host and target)
7871
7872 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7873 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7874 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7875
7876 * Almost SCO Unix support
7877
7878 We had hoped to support:
7879 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7880 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7881 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7882 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7883
7884 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7885
7886 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7887 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7888 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7889 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7890 reqired (if any).
7891
7892 * New Readline
7893
7894 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7895 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7896 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7897
7898 * Bugs fixed
7899
7900 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7901 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7902 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7903
7904 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7905
7906 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7907 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7908 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7909
7910 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7911 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7912 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7913 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7914 version 2.
7915
7916 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7917 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7918 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7919 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7920 situation somewhat.
7921
7922 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7923 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7924 methods.
7925
7926 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7927 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7928 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7929
7930
7931 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7932
7933 * Improved configuration
7934
7935 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7936 Porting BFD is simpler.
7937
7938 * Stepping improved
7939
7940 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7941 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7942 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7943 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7944
7945 * Bug fixing
7946
7947 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7948
7949 * New host supported (not target)
7950
7951 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7952
7953
7954 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7955
7956 * Multiple source language support
7957
7958 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7959 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7960 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7961 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7962 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7963 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7964
7965 * GDB and Modula-2
7966
7967 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7968 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7969 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7970 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7971
7972 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7973 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7974 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7975
7976 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7977 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7978
7979 * set write on/off
7980
7981 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7982 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7983 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7984 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7985 effect immediately.
7986
7987 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7988
7989 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7990 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7991 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7992 examining core files.
7993
7994 * set listsize
7995
7996 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7997 The default is 10.
7998
7999 * New machines supported (host and target)
8000
8001 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
8002 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
8003 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
8004
8005 * New hosts supported (not targets)
8006
8007 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
8008
8009 * New targets supported (not hosts)
8010
8011 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
8012 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
8013 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
8014
8015 * New remote interfaces
8016
8017 AMD 29000 Adapt
8018 AMD 29000 Minimon
8019
8020
8021 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
8022
8023 * New Facilities
8024
8025 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
8026
8027 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
8028 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
8029 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
8030 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
8031 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
8032 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
8033 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
8034 stub on the target system.
8035
8036 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
8037
8038 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
8039 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
8040 object file types such as a.out and coff.
8041
8042 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
8043 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
8044
8045
8046 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
8047
8048 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
8049 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
8050
8051 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
8052 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
8053 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
8054
8055 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
8056 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
8057 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
8058 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
8059
8060 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
8061 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
8062 it is already running. Default is ON.
8063
8064 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
8065 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
8066 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
8067 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
8068 Default is ON.
8069
8070 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
8071 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
8072 or the value of the environment variable
8073 GDBHISTFILE.
8074
8075 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
8076 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
8077 HISTSIZE.
8078
8079 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
8080 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
8081 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
8082
8083 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
8084 history expansion will be performed on
8085 command line input. The default is OFF.
8086
8087 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
8088 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
8089 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
8090
8091 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
8092 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
8093 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8094 variable TERM.
8095
8096 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
8097 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
8098 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8099 variable TERM.
8100
8101 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
8102 ``set width'' instead.
8103
8104 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
8105 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
8106 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
8107 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
8108
8109 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
8110 is OFF.
8111
8112 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
8113 "raw" form if off.
8114
8115 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
8116 like instructions.
8117
8118 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
8119
8120
8121 * Support for Epoch Environment.
8122
8123 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
8124 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
8125 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
8126 window.
8127
8128
8129 * Support for Shared Libraries
8130
8131 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
8132 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
8133 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
8134 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
8135 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
8136 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
8137 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
8138 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
8139
8140 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
8141 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
8142 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
8143
8144 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
8145
8146
8147 * Watchpoints
8148
8149 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
8150 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
8151 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
8152 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
8153 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
8154 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
8155
8156 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
8157
8158 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
8159
8160 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8161 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8162 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8163
8164
8165 * C++ multiple inheritance
8166
8167 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
8168 for C++ programs.
8169
8170 * C++ exception handling
8171
8172 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
8173 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
8174 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
8175 handler's context).
8176
8177 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
8178 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
8179 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
8180
8181 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
8182 current stack frame.
8183
8184
8185 * Minor command changes
8186
8187 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
8188 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
8189 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
8190
8191 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
8192 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
8193 frames without printing.
8194
8195 * New directory command
8196
8197 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
8198 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
8199 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
8200 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
8201 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
8202
8203 * Configuring GDB for compilation
8204
8205 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
8206 for more details.
8207
8208 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
8209 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
8210 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
8211 where the program that you are debugging will run.