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