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