1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.7
6 * New command line options
9 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
11 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
12 as specified in ISO C99.
14 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
15 with or without disassembly.
19 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
20 available is determined at configure time.
21 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
22 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
24 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
28 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
32 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
34 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
35 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
37 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
38 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
42 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
43 show print symbol-loading
44 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
45 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
46 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
49 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
50 show guile print-stack
51 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
53 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
54 show auto-load guile-scripts
55 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
57 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
58 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
59 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
60 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
61 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
64 set auto-connect-native-target
66 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
67 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
68 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
70 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
72 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
73 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
74 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
75 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
76 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
78 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
79 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
80 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
82 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
83 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
84 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
85 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
86 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
87 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
88 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
90 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
91 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
93 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
94 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
95 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
97 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
98 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
101 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
103 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
104 remote. It now works with all targets.
106 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
107 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
108 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
109 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
110 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
111 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
112 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
113 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
114 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
117 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
118 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
119 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
123 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
124 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
125 branch trace incrementally.
129 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
130 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
134 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
136 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
137 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
138 its alias "share", instead.
140 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
142 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
143 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
144 recording has been added.
146 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
148 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
149 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
151 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
152 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
153 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
154 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
155 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
156 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
159 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
161 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
163 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
164 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
165 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
166 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
171 (gdb) info registers rax
174 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
175 "*value not available*".
177 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
182 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
183 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
184 ** Line tables representation has been added.
185 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
186 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
187 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
191 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
192 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
193 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
195 * Removed native configurations
197 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
198 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
200 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
201 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
202 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
203 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
204 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
205 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
206 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
210 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
212 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
214 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
216 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
219 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
221 maint set|show per-command
222 maint set|show per-command space
223 maint set|show per-command time
224 maint set|show per-command symtab
225 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
227 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
228 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
229 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
230 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
231 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
234 info exceptions REGEXP
235 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
236 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
241 set debug symfile off|on
243 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
244 symbol tables within those files
246 set print raw frame-arguments
247 show print raw frame-arguments
248 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
249 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
251 set remote trace-status-packet
252 show remote trace-status-packet
253 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
257 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
261 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
263 set startup-with-shell
264 show startup-with-shell
265 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
270 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
271 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
273 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
274 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
275 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
276 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
279 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
280 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
281 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
283 * New command-line options
285 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
287 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
288 buffer in Common Trace Format.
290 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
293 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
295 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
296 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
298 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
299 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
301 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
302 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
303 due to an uncaught signal.
307 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
308 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
309 command, which should contain "language-option".
311 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
312 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
314 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
315 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
316 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
317 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
318 "undefined-command-error-code".
320 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
323 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
325 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
326 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
329 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
330 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
332 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
333 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
334 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
336 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
337 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
338 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
339 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
340 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
341 "exec-run-start-option".
343 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
344 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
346 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
347 the new "info exceptions" command.
349 * New system-wide configuration scripts
350 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
351 configuration scripts for the following systems:
355 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
356 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
357 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
360 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
361 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
363 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
364 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
365 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
371 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
372 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
373 involvemement at each single-step.
375 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
376 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
377 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
378 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
379 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
380 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
383 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
385 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
386 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
388 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
389 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
390 trace state variables.
392 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
395 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
396 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
398 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
400 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
401 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
402 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
403 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
405 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
407 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
408 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
409 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
410 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
412 set|show record full insn-number-max
413 set|show record full stop-at-limit
414 set|show record full memory-query
416 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
417 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
418 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
419 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
420 This new recording method can be enabled using:
424 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
425 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
427 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
428 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
429 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
431 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
432 instruction granularity
434 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
437 * New native configurations
439 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
440 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
441 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
442 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
446 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
447 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
448 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
449 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
450 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
452 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
453 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
454 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
455 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
456 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
457 --data-directory command-line option.
459 * New command line options:
461 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
462 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
464 * Removed command line options
466 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
469 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
472 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
476 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
478 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
480 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
482 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
484 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
485 of architecture in the Python API.
487 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
488 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
490 * New Python-based convenience functions:
492 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
493 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
495 ** $_regex(str, regex)
497 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
500 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
501 default for GCC since November 2000.
503 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
505 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
506 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
508 * New configure options
510 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
511 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
512 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
513 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
514 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
515 options allow the user to override that default.
516 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
517 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
518 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
520 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
523 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
524 conditions to be attached.
527 List the BFDs known to GDB.
529 python-interactive [command]
531 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
532 and print the result of expressions.
535 "py" is a new alias for "python".
537 enable type-printer [name]...
538 disable type-printer [name]...
539 Enable or disable type printers.
543 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
544 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
549 set print type methods (on|off)
550 show print type methods
551 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
552 The default is to show them.
554 set print type typedefs (on|off)
555 show print type typedefs
556 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
557 The default is to show them.
559 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
560 show filename-display
561 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
562 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
564 set trace-buffer-size
565 show trace-buffer-size
566 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
568 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
569 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
570 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
574 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
577 set debug coff-pe-read
578 show debug coff-pe-read
579 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
584 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
587 set debug notification
588 show debug notification
589 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
593 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
594 "=cmd-param-changed".
595 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
596 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
597 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
598 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
599 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
600 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
601 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
602 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
604 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
605 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
606 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
607 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
608 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
609 library load/unload events.
610 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
611 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
612 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
613 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
614 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
615 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
616 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
617 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
619 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
620 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
621 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
622 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
627 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
628 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
631 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
632 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
636 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
637 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
640 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
641 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
643 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
645 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
646 for more x32 ABI info.
648 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
650 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
652 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
653 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
654 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
655 "info os files" lists file descriptors
656 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
657 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
658 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
659 "info os msg" lists message queues
660 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
662 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
663 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
664 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
665 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
666 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
667 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
669 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
670 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
671 record/replay support.
673 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
677 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
680 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
682 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
683 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
685 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
687 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
688 the source at which the symbol was defined.
690 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
691 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
692 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
695 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
696 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
698 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
699 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
700 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
702 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
703 object associated with a PC value.
705 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
706 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
708 * Go language support.
709 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
712 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
713 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
715 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
716 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
718 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
719 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
720 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
721 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
722 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
725 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
726 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
727 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
730 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
731 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
733 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
736 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
737 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
738 command does. For instance:
740 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
742 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
743 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
744 created, using the "condition" command.
746 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
747 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
749 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
751 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
752 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
753 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
754 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
755 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
756 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
757 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
758 files with older .gdb_index sections.
760 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
761 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
762 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
763 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
764 the .gdb_index section.
766 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
768 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
773 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
775 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
779 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
780 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
781 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
783 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
784 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
786 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
789 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
790 C++ and Java objects.
792 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
793 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
794 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
795 configured with '--with-python'.
797 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
798 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
799 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
800 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
801 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
802 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
803 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
805 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
806 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
807 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
808 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
810 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
811 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
812 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
813 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
815 ** "set print symbol"
817 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
818 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
819 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
821 * Deprecated commands
823 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
824 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
828 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
829 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
831 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
832 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
833 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
834 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
840 show mips compression
841 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
842 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
845 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
847 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
848 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
849 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
850 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
852 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
856 Disable auto-loading globally.
859 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
861 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
862 show auto-load gdb-scripts
863 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
865 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
866 show auto-load python-scripts
867 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
869 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
870 show auto-load local-gdbinit
871 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
873 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
874 show auto-load libthread-db
875 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
877 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
878 show auto-load scripts-directory
879 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
880 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
881 of the directories listed by this option.
882 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
884 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
885 show auto-load safe-path
886 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
887 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
889 set debug auto-load on|off
891 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
893 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
895 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
896 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
897 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
898 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
900 set dprintf-function <expr>
901 show dprintf-function
902 set dprintf-channel <expr>
904 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
905 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
907 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
908 show disconnected-dprintf
909 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
910 after GDB disconnects.
912 * New configure options
915 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
916 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
917 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
918 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
919 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
921 --with-auto-load-safe-path
922 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
923 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
925 --without-auto-load-safe-path
926 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
931 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
933 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
934 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
935 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
936 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
940 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
941 program without GDB involvement.
943 * New command line options
945 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
946 before loading inferior.
947 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
948 execute it before loading inferior.
950 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
952 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
953 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
954 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
955 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
958 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
959 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
961 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
962 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
963 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
964 target hardware watchpoint.
966 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
967 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
968 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
969 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
973 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
974 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
977 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
978 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
979 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
980 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
981 now "message", which just prints the error message without
984 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
987 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
988 modules library. This module provides functionality for
989 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
990 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
993 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
994 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
995 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
998 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
999 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1000 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1001 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1003 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1005 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1008 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1009 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1010 available in the CLI.
1012 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1013 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1014 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1015 "some_type.items()".
1017 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1020 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1021 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1022 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1023 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1024 any anonymous fields.
1028 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1031 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1032 "=breakpoint-modified".
1034 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1036 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1037 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1038 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1041 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1042 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1043 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1044 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1045 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1047 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1048 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1050 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1051 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1052 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1053 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1054 use this option to specify where to find it.
1056 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1057 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1058 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1059 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1060 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1061 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1062 section in the user manual for more details.
1064 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1065 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1066 become available after that.
1068 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
1070 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1071 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1077 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1078 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1082 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1083 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1084 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1086 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1087 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1088 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1090 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1091 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1092 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1093 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1094 name starts with a hyphen.
1096 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1097 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1098 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1099 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1100 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1101 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1102 number of bytes that will be collected.
1105 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1106 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1107 setting the variable trace-notes.
1110 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1111 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1112 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1115 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1116 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1117 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1118 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1119 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1122 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1123 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1124 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1128 set debug dwarf2-read
1129 show debug dwarf2-read
1130 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1131 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1133 set debug symtab-create
1134 show debug symtab-create
1135 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1136 creation. The default is off.
1139 show extended-prompt
1140 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1141 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1142 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1143 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1144 prompt is displayed.
1146 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1147 show print entry-values
1148 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1149 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1150 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1152 set debug entry-values
1153 show debug entry-values
1154 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1155 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1157 set basenames-may-differ
1158 show basenames-may-differ
1159 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1160 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1161 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1162 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1163 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1164 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1165 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1166 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1172 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1173 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1174 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1175 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1177 set trace-stop-notes
1178 show trace-stop-notes
1179 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1180 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1181 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1182 started by someone else.
1184 * New remote packets
1188 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1192 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1196 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1200 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1204 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1207 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1208 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1212 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1216 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1218 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1220 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1222 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1224 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1225 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1226 matches the given regular expression.
1228 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1230 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1231 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1233 * New command line options
1235 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1236 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1238 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1239 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1241 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1242 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1243 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1245 * GDB now understands thread names.
1247 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1248 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1250 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1251 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1254 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1255 has been integrated into GDB.
1259 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1260 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1261 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1263 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1264 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1265 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1266 and allows for more dynamic content.
1268 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1269 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1270 have an is_valid method.
1272 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1273 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1274 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1276 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1278 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1279 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1280 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1281 that function like so:
1283 result = some_value (10,20)
1285 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1286 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1287 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1289 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1290 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1291 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1292 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1293 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1295 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1296 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1298 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1300 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1303 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1304 holds the thread's name.
1306 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1307 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1308 occurring in the process being debugged.
1309 The following events are currently supported:
1310 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1311 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1312 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1316 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1317 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1319 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1321 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1322 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1323 was added to GCC 4.5.
1325 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1326 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1327 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1328 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1329 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1330 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1332 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1333 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1334 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1335 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1336 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1338 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1339 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1340 execution to a label.
1342 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1343 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1344 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1345 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1347 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1348 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1349 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1352 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1354 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1355 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1356 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1357 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1358 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1359 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1362 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1364 While now you see this:
1367 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1369 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1372 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1373 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1374 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1375 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1377 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1378 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1379 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1380 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1381 section in the user manual for more details.
1383 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1385 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1386 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1388 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1390 * New native configurations
1392 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1396 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1398 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1399 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1400 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1401 in the GDB user manual.
1403 * Guile support was removed.
1405 * New features in the GNU simulator
1407 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1409 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1411 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1413 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1415 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1416 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1417 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1418 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1419 was always disabled for such configurations.
1423 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1425 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1426 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1436 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1437 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1438 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1440 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1442 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1443 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1444 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1445 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1447 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1448 mentioned flavors of operators.
1450 ** static const class members
1452 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1453 class definition has been fixed.
1455 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1457 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1458 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1459 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1460 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1461 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1462 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1464 * Static tracepoints
1466 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1467 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1468 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1469 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1470 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1471 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1472 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1473 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1474 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1475 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1476 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1477 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1478 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1479 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1480 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1481 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1482 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1483 the "New remote packets" section below.
1485 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1487 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1488 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1489 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1490 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1494 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1495 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1496 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1497 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1498 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1499 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1500 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1502 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1505 * New remote packets
1509 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1513 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1514 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1515 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1516 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1517 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1518 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1522 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1526 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1529 qXfer:statictrace:read
1531 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1532 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1533 to gdb's qSupported query.
1537 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1541 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1542 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1544 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1545 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1548 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1550 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1551 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1552 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1553 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1555 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1556 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1557 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1558 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1559 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1560 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1561 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1563 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1564 for static tracepoints support.
1566 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1568 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1569 it understands register description.
1571 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1573 * X86 general purpose registers
1575 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1576 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1577 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1578 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1579 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1581 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1582 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1583 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1584 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1585 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1586 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1588 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1589 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1590 in the specified file.
1592 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1593 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1594 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1595 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1596 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1597 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1598 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1599 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1600 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1601 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1605 eval template, expressions...
1606 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1607 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1609 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1610 show target-file-system-kind
1611 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1614 save breakpoints <filename>
1615 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1616 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1617 definitions, use the `source' command.
1619 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1622 info static-tracepoint-markers
1623 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1625 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1626 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1627 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1631 Enable and disable observer mode.
1633 set may-write-registers on|off
1634 set may-write-memory on|off
1635 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1636 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1637 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1638 set may-interrupt on|off
1639 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1640 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1641 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1642 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1643 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1644 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1645 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1647 set record memory-query on|off
1648 show record memory-query
1649 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1650 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1655 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1659 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1660 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1661 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1662 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1663 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1665 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1666 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1667 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1668 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1670 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1671 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1673 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1675 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1677 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1679 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1680 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1681 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1683 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1684 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1685 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1686 regular breakpoints.
1690 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1692 * D language support.
1693 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1696 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1697 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1698 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1699 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1700 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1702 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1703 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1704 conditions of the form:
1706 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1708 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1709 interface mentioned above.
1711 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1715 ** Namespace Support
1717 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1718 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1719 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1720 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1721 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1725 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1726 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1731 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1732 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1736 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1741 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1744 * Multi-program debugging.
1746 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1747 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1748 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1749 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1750 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1751 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1752 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1753 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1755 * New tracing features
1757 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1759 ** Trace state variables
1761 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1762 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1763 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1764 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1765 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1766 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1767 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1768 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1769 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1770 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1774 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1775 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1776 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1777 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1778 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1779 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1780 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1781 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1782 the regular trace command.
1784 ** Disconnected tracing
1786 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1787 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1788 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1789 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1790 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1794 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1795 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1796 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1797 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1798 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1799 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1802 ** Circular trace buffer
1804 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1805 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1806 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1807 not be available for all target agents.
1812 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1813 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1816 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1817 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1820 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1821 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1824 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1825 "set script-extension" (see below).
1827 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1829 record save [<FILENAME>]
1830 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1831 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1833 record restore <FILENAME>
1834 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1835 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1837 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1840 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1841 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1842 inferior has loaded.
1847 maint info program-spaces
1848 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1850 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1851 show remote interrupt-sequence
1852 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1853 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1854 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1855 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1856 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1858 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1859 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1860 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1861 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1864 set remotebreak [on | off]
1866 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1868 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1869 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1872 List trace state variables and their values.
1874 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1875 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1878 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1879 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1881 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1882 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1884 * New expression syntax
1886 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1887 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1891 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1892 show follow-exec-mode
1893 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1894 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1895 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1897 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1898 show default-collect
1899 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1900 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1901 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1903 set disconnected-tracing
1904 show disconnected-tracing
1905 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1906 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1909 set circular-trace-buffer
1910 show circular-trace-buffer
1911 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1912 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1913 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1914 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1916 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1917 show script-extension
1918 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1919 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1920 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1921 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1923 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1925 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1926 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1927 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1928 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1929 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1930 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1931 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1934 * Python API Improvements
1936 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1937 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1938 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1940 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1941 `is_base_class' attribute.
1943 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1945 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1946 evaluate an expression.
1948 * New remote packets
1951 Define a trace state variable.
1954 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1957 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1960 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1963 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1967 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1969 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1970 much more reliable. In particular:
1971 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1972 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1973 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1974 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1975 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1976 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1977 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1978 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1979 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1980 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1981 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1982 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1983 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1984 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1985 non-threaded programs.
1987 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1988 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1989 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1992 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1994 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1995 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1996 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1997 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1998 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2000 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2001 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2002 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2003 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2004 for tracepoint actions.
2006 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2007 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2008 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
2010 * Process record and replay
2012 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2013 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2014 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2017 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2018 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2019 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2022 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2023 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
2026 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2027 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2028 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2029 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2030 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2031 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2032 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2033 the installation instructions for more information.
2035 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2036 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2037 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2038 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2040 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2041 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2043 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2044 now complete on file names.
2046 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2047 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2048 For instance, consider:
2050 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2051 # struct example variable;
2054 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2055 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2057 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2058 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2060 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2061 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2064 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
2065 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2066 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2068 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2069 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2070 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2071 and simulator targets may also provide them.
2073 * New remote packets
2076 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2079 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2080 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2081 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2084 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2085 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2088 Obtains additional operating system information
2092 Read or write additional signal information.
2094 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2096 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2097 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2098 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2100 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
2101 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
2103 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
2104 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2105 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
2107 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2108 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2110 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2112 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2114 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2115 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2117 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
2118 list of section offsets.
2120 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2121 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2122 have also been fixed.
2124 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
2125 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2126 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
2128 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2131 template<typename T> class C { };
2134 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2136 ptype C<char const *>
2137 ptype C<char const*>
2138 ptype C<const char *>
2139 ptype C<const char*>
2141 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2143 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2144 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2146 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2147 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2148 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2150 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2151 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2153 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2156 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2157 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2159 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2160 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2165 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2166 available is determined at configure time.
2168 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2170 * Ada tasking support
2172 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2176 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2178 Print detailed information about task number N.
2180 Print the task number of the current task.
2182 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2184 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2185 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2187 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2189 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2190 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2191 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2192 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2193 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2194 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2197 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2198 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2201 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2202 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2203 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2204 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2207 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2209 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2210 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2211 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2212 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2213 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2215 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2216 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2217 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2218 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2219 --enable-targets configure option.
2221 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2223 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2224 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2225 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2226 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2227 section in the user manual for more information.
2229 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2230 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2231 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2232 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2233 extensions on linux targets.
2235 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2237 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2238 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2239 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2240 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2241 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2242 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2243 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2244 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2245 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2247 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2249 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2251 maint set python print-stack
2252 maint show python print-stack
2253 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2256 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2261 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2265 Show operating system information about processes.
2268 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2271 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2274 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2277 Kill inferior number NUM.
2281 set spu stop-on-load
2282 show spu stop-on-load
2283 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2285 set spu auto-flush-cache
2286 show spu auto-flush-cache
2287 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2288 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2290 set sh calling-convention
2291 show sh calling-convention
2292 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2295 show debug timestamp
2296 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2298 set disassemble-next-line
2299 show disassemble-next-line
2300 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2303 set remote noack-packet
2304 show remote noack-packet
2305 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2306 under "New remote packets."
2308 set remote query-attached-packet
2309 show remote query-attached-packet
2310 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2312 set remote read-siginfo-object
2313 show remote read-siginfo-object
2314 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2317 set remote write-siginfo-object
2318 show remote write-siginfo-object
2319 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2322 set remote reverse-continue
2323 show remote reverse-continue
2324 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2326 set remote reverse-step
2327 show remote reverse-step
2328 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2330 set displaced-stepping
2331 show displaced-stepping
2332 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2333 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2334 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2337 show debug displaced
2338 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2340 maint set internal-error
2341 maint show internal-error
2342 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2344 maint set internal-warning
2345 maint show internal-warning
2346 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2351 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2353 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2354 show multiple-symbols
2355 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2356 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2357 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2359 set breakpoint always-inserted
2360 show breakpoint always-inserted
2361 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2362 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2363 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2365 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2366 show arm fallback-mode
2367 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2369 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2370 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2371 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2372 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2374 set disable-randomization
2375 show disable-randomization
2376 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2377 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2378 multiple debugging sessions.
2382 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2387 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2388 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2389 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2390 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2392 set target-wide-charset
2393 show target-wide-charset
2394 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2395 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2397 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2399 set tcp connect-timeout
2400 show tcp connect-timeout
2401 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2402 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2403 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2405 set libthread-db-search-path
2406 show libthread-db-search-path
2407 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2410 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2411 show schedule-multiple
2412 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2413 the current process.
2417 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2418 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2419 affecting correctness.
2421 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2422 show interactive-mode
2423 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2424 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2425 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2426 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2427 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2432 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2433 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2434 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2438 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2439 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2440 alias for the `fork' command.
2443 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2444 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2445 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2448 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2449 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2450 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2454 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2455 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2456 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2459 * New native configurations
2461 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2463 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2467 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2468 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2469 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2472 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2473 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2479 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2481 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2483 * New native configurations
2485 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2486 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2490 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2491 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2493 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2495 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2496 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2497 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2498 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2500 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2501 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2503 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2506 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2507 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2508 and in inlined functions.
2510 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2511 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2512 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2514 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2516 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2517 registers on PowerPC targets.
2519 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2520 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2522 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2523 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2525 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2526 extended-remote mode.
2528 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2529 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2530 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2531 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2533 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2534 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2535 target architectures.
2537 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2538 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2539 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2540 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2542 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2545 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2546 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2548 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2549 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2550 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2551 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2553 - Improved command completion in Ada
2556 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2561 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2562 show print frame-arguments
2563 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2564 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2569 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2576 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2578 * New remote packets
2585 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2588 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2592 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2594 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2596 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2597 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2598 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2600 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2601 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2602 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2604 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2605 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2608 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2609 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2611 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2612 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2614 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2616 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2617 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2618 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2620 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2621 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2623 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2624 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2627 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2628 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2629 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2631 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2634 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2635 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2636 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2638 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2640 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2642 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2643 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2644 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2646 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2647 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2649 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2650 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2651 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2652 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2653 Windows and SymbianOS).
2655 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2656 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2658 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2659 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2665 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2666 when debugging using remote targets.
2668 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2669 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2670 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2671 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2672 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2673 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2674 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2676 set breakpoint auto-hw
2677 show breakpoint auto-hw
2678 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2679 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2680 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2681 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2682 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2683 including "next" and "finish".
2686 catch exception unhandled
2687 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2690 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2694 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2695 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2696 an alias to "set sysroot".
2699 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2700 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2703 * New native configurations
2705 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2708 unset tdesc filename
2710 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2711 not query the target for its built-in description.
2715 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2716 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2717 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2719 * New remote packets
2722 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2723 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2725 qXfer:features:read:
2726 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2731 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2732 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2734 qXfer:libraries:read:
2735 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2736 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2737 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2738 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2742 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2750 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2751 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2752 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2753 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2755 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2758 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2759 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2768 * Other removed features
2775 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2782 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2787 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2788 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2793 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2794 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2796 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2798 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2799 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2800 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2801 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2803 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2805 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2806 in debugging information.
2810 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2811 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2813 set mips stack-arg-size
2814 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2816 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2818 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2823 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2825 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2826 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2827 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2829 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2830 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2833 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2834 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2836 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2837 stub provides the required support.
2839 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2840 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2845 unset substitute-path
2846 show substitute-path
2847 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2848 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2849 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2850 between compilation and debugging.
2854 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2855 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2856 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2860 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2862 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2863 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2865 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2867 * New remote packets
2870 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2871 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2872 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2873 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2877 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2878 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2880 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2881 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2882 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2887 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2889 * Removed remote packets
2892 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2893 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2895 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2899 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2901 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2905 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2906 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2908 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2910 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2912 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2913 previously saved state.
2915 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2917 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2919 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2920 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2922 info forks List forks of the user program that
2923 are available to be debugged.
2925 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2926 forks of the user program that are
2927 available to be debugged.
2929 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2930 that are available to be debugged (and
2931 kill the forked process).
2933 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2934 that are available to be debugged (and
2935 allow the process to continue).
2939 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2941 * Improved Windows host support
2943 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2944 native console support, and remote communications using either
2945 network sockets or serial ports.
2947 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2949 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2950 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2951 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2952 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2953 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2954 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2958 The ARM rdi-share module.
2960 The Netware NLM debug server.
2962 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2964 * New native configurations
2966 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2967 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2971 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2973 * New command line options
2975 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2976 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2977 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2978 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2979 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2980 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2981 with the --command (-x) option.
2983 * Deprecated commands removed
2985 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2989 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2990 othernames set arm disassembler
2991 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2992 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2993 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2996 * New BSD user-level threads support
2998 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2999 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3002 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3003 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3004 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3006 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3007 are not yet supported.
3009 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3010 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3012 * REMOVED configurations and files
3014 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
3015 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3016 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
3018 * New "set print array-indexes" command
3020 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3021 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3024 * VAX floating point support
3026 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3028 * User-defined command support
3030 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3031 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3032 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3034 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3036 * New command line option
3038 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3041 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3043 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3044 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3045 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3046 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3047 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3049 * Internationalization
3051 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3052 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3053 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3057 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3058 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3059 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3061 * New native configurations
3063 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3067 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3068 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3070 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3072 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3073 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3074 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3077 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3078 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3079 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3089 powerpc bdm protocol
3091 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3092 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3094 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3096 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3097 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3098 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3099 permanently REMOVED.
3108 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3110 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3112 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3113 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3116 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3118 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3119 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3120 IRIX long double values).
3124 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3125 command. This problem has been fixed.
3127 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
3129 * Fix for ``many threads''
3131 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3132 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3135 ptrace: No such process.
3136 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3138 This problem has been fixed.
3140 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3142 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3145 * New ``start'' command.
3147 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3149 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3151 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3152 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3153 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3155 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3156 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3157 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3158 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3159 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3160 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3161 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3162 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3163 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3165 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3167 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3168 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3169 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3170 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3171 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3173 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3174 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3175 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3177 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3179 * New native configurations
3181 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3182 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3183 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3184 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3185 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3186 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3187 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3189 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3191 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3192 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3193 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3194 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3195 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3196 work, was also included.
3198 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3199 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3209 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3210 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3212 * REMOVED configurations and files
3214 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3215 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3216 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3217 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3218 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3219 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3220 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3221 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3222 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3223 sonymips mips-sony-*
3224 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3226 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3228 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3230 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3231 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3232 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3233 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3236 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3238 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3239 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3240 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3241 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3242 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3243 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3246 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3248 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3250 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3251 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3252 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3254 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3256 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3257 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3259 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3261 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3262 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3263 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3265 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3267 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3268 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3270 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3272 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3273 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3274 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3276 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3278 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3279 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3280 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3282 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3284 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3286 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3287 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3289 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3291 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3292 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3293 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3294 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3296 * Revised SPARC target
3298 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3299 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3300 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3301 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3302 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3306 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3307 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3308 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3311 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3313 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3314 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3317 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3319 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3320 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3321 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3322 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3323 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3324 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3325 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3326 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3327 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3329 * New native configurations
3331 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3332 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3333 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3334 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3335 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3337 * New debugging protocols
3339 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3341 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3343 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3344 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3345 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3347 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3349 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3350 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3351 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3352 permanently REMOVED.
3354 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3355 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3356 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3357 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3358 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3359 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3360 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3361 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3362 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3363 sonymips mips-sony-*
3364 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3366 * REMOVED configurations and files
3368 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3369 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3370 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3371 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3372 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3373 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3374 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3375 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3376 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3377 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3378 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3379 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3380 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3381 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3382 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3383 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3384 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3386 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3390 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3391 integrated into GDB.
3393 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3395 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3396 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3397 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3400 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3401 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3402 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3406 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3407 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3408 remote protocol documentation for details.
3410 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3412 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3413 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3414 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3417 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3419 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3420 per-thread variables.
3422 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3424 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3425 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3427 * Separate debug info.
3429 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3430 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3431 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3432 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3433 and optional debug files.
3435 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3437 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3438 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3441 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3442 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3446 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3447 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3448 considered "useable".
3450 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3452 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3453 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3456 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3458 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3459 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3461 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3463 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3464 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3467 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3469 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3470 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3474 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3475 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3476 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3477 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3478 data, for more informative profiling results.
3480 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3482 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3483 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3484 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3486 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3489 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3490 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3491 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3492 in a subsequent -var-update.
3494 * New native configurations.
3496 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3498 * Multi-arched targets.
3500 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3501 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3503 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3505 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3506 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3507 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3508 permanently REMOVED.
3510 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3511 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3512 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3513 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3514 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3515 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3516 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3517 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3518 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3519 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3520 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3521 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3523 * REMOVED configurations and files
3526 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3527 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3528 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3529 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3530 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3531 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3533 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3534 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3535 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3536 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3537 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3538 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3540 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3542 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3543 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3544 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3545 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3546 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3548 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3550 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3552 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3553 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3554 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3555 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3556 shared libs like mad''.
3558 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3560 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3561 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3562 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3563 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3565 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3567 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3568 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3571 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3572 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3574 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3575 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3577 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3578 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3579 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3580 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3582 * Multi-arched targets.
3584 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3585 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3587 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3588 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3589 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3593 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3596 * New native configurations
3598 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3599 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3600 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3601 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3603 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3605 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3606 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3607 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3608 permanently REMOVED.
3610 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3611 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3612 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3613 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3614 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3615 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3616 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3617 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3618 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3619 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3621 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3622 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3624 * OBSOLETE languages
3626 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3628 * REMOVED configurations and files
3630 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3631 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3632 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3633 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3634 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3636 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3638 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3640 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3641 commands. The default is 1024.
3643 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3645 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3647 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3649 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3650 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3651 from a file into memory (restore).
3653 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3655 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3656 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3657 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3659 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3667 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3668 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3669 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3671 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3672 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3673 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3675 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3676 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3677 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3679 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3680 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3681 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3683 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3685 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3687 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3688 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3689 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3690 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3691 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3692 (notably embedded) targets.
3694 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3696 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3697 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3698 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3699 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3701 * New command line option
3703 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3705 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3707 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3708 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3709 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3710 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3711 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3712 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3713 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3714 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3715 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3716 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3718 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3720 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3721 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3723 * New native configurations
3725 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3726 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3727 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3728 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3732 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3734 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3736 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3737 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3738 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3739 permanently REMOVED.
3741 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3742 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3743 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3744 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3745 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3747 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3749 * REMOVED configurations and files
3751 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3753 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3754 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3755 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3756 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3757 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3758 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3759 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3760 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3761 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3762 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3763 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3765 * Changes to command line processing
3767 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3768 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3770 * Changes to key bindings
3772 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3774 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3776 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3778 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3781 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3783 Numerous documentation fixes.
3785 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3787 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3789 * New native configurations
3791 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3792 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3793 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3794 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3795 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3796 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3800 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3802 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3804 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3806 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3807 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3808 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3809 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3810 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3812 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3813 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3814 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3815 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3816 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3817 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3818 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3819 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3821 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3822 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3824 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3825 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3826 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3827 permanently REMOVED.
3829 * REMOVED configurations and files
3831 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3832 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3834 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3838 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3840 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3841 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3846 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3848 * The MI enabled by default.
3850 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3851 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3852 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3853 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3854 which is now deprecated.
3856 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3858 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3859 main features are supported:
3861 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3863 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3866 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3868 - a Pascal expression parser.
3870 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3872 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3874 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3876 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3877 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3879 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3881 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3883 * Changes in completion.
3885 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3886 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3887 users expect at the shell prompt.
3889 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3890 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3891 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3892 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3893 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3894 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3895 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3897 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3899 * New platform-independent commands:
3901 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3902 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3903 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3905 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3907 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3908 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3909 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3911 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3913 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3914 multi-threaded programs though.
3916 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3918 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3920 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3921 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3924 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3926 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3927 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3928 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3929 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3930 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3933 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3934 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3935 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3937 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3939 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3940 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3942 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3943 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3946 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3947 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3948 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3949 a given linear address.
3951 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3952 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3953 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3955 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3957 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3959 * Changes in documentation.
3961 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3962 Documentation License.
3964 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3967 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3969 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3972 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3973 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3974 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3976 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3978 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3979 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3980 contents of this file.
3984 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3986 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3988 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3990 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3991 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3992 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3993 greater level of detail.
3995 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3997 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3998 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3999 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4002 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4004 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4005 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4006 machines ``out of the box''.
4008 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4009 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4010 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4011 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4012 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4014 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4015 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4016 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4017 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4018 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4020 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4021 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4024 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4027 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4028 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4029 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4030 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4032 * New native configurations
4034 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4035 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4039 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
4040 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4041 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4042 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4044 * OBSOLETE configurations
4046 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4047 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4049 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4052 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4053 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4054 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4055 be permanently REMOVED.
4057 * Gould support removed
4059 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4061 * New features for SVR4
4063 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4064 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4065 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4067 * Many C++ enhancements
4069 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4070 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4072 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4074 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4075 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4076 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4077 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4079 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4080 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4082 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
4084 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4085 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4086 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4088 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4089 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4091 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4093 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4094 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4095 include ``set remote P-packet''.
4097 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4099 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4100 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4101 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4103 * ``apropos'' command added.
4105 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4106 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4107 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4111 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4112 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
4113 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4114 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4115 enabled by configuring with:
4117 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4119 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4121 * New native configurations
4123 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4124 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
4125 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
4129 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4130 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4131 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4133 * OBSOLETE configurations
4135 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4137 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4138 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4139 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4140 be permanently REMOVED.
4144 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4145 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4146 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4147 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4148 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4149 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4150 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4155 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4157 * set extension-language
4159 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4160 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4161 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4162 set extension-language .c c++
4163 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4164 and their associated languages.
4166 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4168 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4169 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4170 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4174 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4175 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4177 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4178 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4180 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4181 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4182 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4183 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4184 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4185 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4186 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4187 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4189 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4190 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4191 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4192 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4196 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4197 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4198 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4199 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4200 for xdb and dbx commands.
4204 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4205 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4206 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4208 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4209 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4210 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4212 * Debugging across forks
4214 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4219 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4220 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4221 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4223 * GDB remote protocol additions
4225 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4226 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4227 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4228 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4230 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4231 full 64-bit address. The command
4233 set remoteaddresssize 32
4235 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4236 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4239 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4240 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4242 maint packet heythere
4244 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4245 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4248 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4249 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4250 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4252 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4254 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4255 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4256 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4258 * mask-address variable for Mips
4260 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4261 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4262 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4264 * Higher serial baud rates
4266 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4267 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4268 to achieve all of these rates.)
4272 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4273 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4276 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4278 * New native configurations
4280 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4281 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4282 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4283 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4284 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4285 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4286 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4290 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4291 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4292 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4293 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4294 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4295 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4296 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4297 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4298 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4299 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4300 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4302 * New debugging protocols
4304 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4305 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4306 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4307 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4308 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4309 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4313 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4314 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4319 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4320 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4322 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4324 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4325 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4326 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4328 * Live range splitting
4330 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4331 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4332 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4336 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4337 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4341 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4342 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4343 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4348 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4353 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4354 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4355 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4356 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4357 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4358 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4362 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4363 the symbol at the specified address.
4367 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4368 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4369 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4370 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4371 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4375 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4376 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4377 of most MIPS variants.
4381 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4382 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4383 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4387 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4388 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4389 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4390 the possible architectures.
4392 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4394 * New native configurations
4396 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4397 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4398 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4399 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4400 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4401 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4405 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4406 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4407 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4408 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4409 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4411 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4415 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4416 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4417 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4418 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4419 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4423 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4425 * Windows 95/NT native
4427 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4428 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4429 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4430 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4431 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4433 * dont-repeat command
4435 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4436 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4437 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4438 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4440 * Send break instead of ^C
4442 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4443 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4444 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4446 * Remote protocol timeout
4448 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4449 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4450 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4452 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4454 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4455 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4456 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4457 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4458 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4460 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4461 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4462 automatically on hpux10.
4464 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4466 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4468 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4470 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4471 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4472 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4473 every character. The default value is 1050.
4475 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4477 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4478 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4479 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4480 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4481 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4482 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4484 * Speedups for remote debugging
4486 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4487 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4488 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4490 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4492 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4493 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4495 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4497 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4499 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4500 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4502 * Remote targets use caching
4504 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4505 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4506 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4507 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4508 off' turns the the data cache off.
4510 * Remote targets may have threads
4512 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4513 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4514 gdb/remote.c for details.
4518 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4519 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4520 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4521 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4522 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4523 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4524 sequence is something like
4526 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4528 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4532 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4533 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4534 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4535 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4536 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4537 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4538 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4539 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4543 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4544 but does simplify configuration and building.
4548 GDB now supports hpux10.
4550 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4552 * New native configurations
4554 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4555 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4556 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4557 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4561 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4562 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4563 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4564 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4567 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4569 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4570 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4571 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4572 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4573 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4575 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4577 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4578 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4581 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4583 To execute the command use:
4586 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4587 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4588 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4590 * New `if' and `while' commands
4592 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4593 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4594 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4595 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4596 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4597 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4598 if the expression is zero.
4600 * Fortran source language mode
4602 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4603 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4604 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4605 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4608 * Better HPUX support
4610 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4611 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4612 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4613 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4614 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4620 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4621 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4627 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4628 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4631 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4632 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4634 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4636 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4637 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4638 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4639 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4640 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4641 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4643 * New DOS host serial code
4645 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4646 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4649 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4651 * New "complete" command
4653 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4654 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4656 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4658 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4659 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4661 * Breakpoint hit counts
4663 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4664 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4665 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4666 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4667 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4670 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4672 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4673 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4674 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4676 * Shared library breakpoints
4678 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4679 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4681 * Hardware watchpoints
4683 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4684 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4686 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4690 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4691 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4693 * Improved Irix 5 support
4695 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4697 * Improved HPPA support
4699 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4701 * New native configurations
4703 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4704 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4705 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4706 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4710 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4711 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4714 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4716 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4717 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4721 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4722 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4724 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4726 * Irix 5 is now supported
4730 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4731 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4732 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4733 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4734 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4737 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4739 * User visible changes:
4743 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4744 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4745 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4746 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4747 debugging info for the mips target).
4749 * DEC Alpha native support
4751 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4752 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4753 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4754 Alpha-specific notes.
4756 * Preliminary thread implementation
4758 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4760 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4762 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4763 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4766 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4768 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4769 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4770 call methods, ...etc.
4772 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4774 * User visible changes:
4776 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4777 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4778 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4779 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4781 Filename completion now works.
4783 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4784 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4785 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4787 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4788 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4789 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4790 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4791 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4795 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4796 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4799 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4803 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4804 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4805 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4809 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4810 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4811 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4812 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4813 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4817 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4818 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4819 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4821 * New targets supported
4823 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4824 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4825 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4826 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4827 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4829 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4830 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4831 GO32 memory extender.
4833 * New remote protocols
4835 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4837 * New source languages supported
4839 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4840 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4841 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4844 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4846 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4848 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4849 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4850 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4851 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4852 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4853 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4855 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4857 * Faster and better demangling
4859 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4860 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4861 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4862 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4863 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4864 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4867 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4868 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4869 compiler does not actually implement.
4871 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4873 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4874 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4875 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4876 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4877 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4878 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4881 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4882 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4884 * Improved configure script
4886 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4887 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4888 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4889 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4891 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4892 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4893 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4894 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4895 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4896 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4898 * Documentation improvements
4900 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4901 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4902 before submitting changes.
4904 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4905 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4906 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4907 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4908 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4910 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4911 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4912 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4913 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4914 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4915 around this problem.
4919 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4920 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4921 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4924 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4925 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4927 * New native hosts supported
4929 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4930 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4932 * New targets supported
4934 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4936 * New file formats supported
4938 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4939 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4943 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4945 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4946 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4948 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4949 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4950 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4952 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4953 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4955 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4956 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4957 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4960 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4961 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4962 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4963 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4964 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4966 * Internal improvements
4968 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4969 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4971 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4972 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4973 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4974 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4975 shared code that handles any of them.
4977 * New command line options
4979 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4983 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4984 General Public License.
4986 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4988 * Host/native/target split
4990 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4991 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4992 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4993 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4994 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4996 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4997 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4998 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4999 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5000 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5001 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5002 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5004 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5005 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5006 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5008 * New hosts supported
5010 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5011 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5012 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5014 * New targets supported
5016 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5017 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5019 * New native hosts supported
5021 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5022 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5023 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5025 * New file formats supported
5027 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5028 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5029 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5033 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5034 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5035 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5037 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5039 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5040 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5041 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5042 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5046 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5047 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5048 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5050 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5054 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5055 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5058 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5059 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5061 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5062 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5063 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5064 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5065 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5066 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5068 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5069 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5070 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5071 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5075 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5076 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5077 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5078 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5079 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5081 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5082 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5083 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5084 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5088 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5089 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5090 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5091 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5092 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5093 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5094 each instruction being stepped through.
5096 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5097 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5099 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5100 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5101 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5102 processor with a serial port.
5106 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5107 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5108 supported, and what files each one uses.
5112 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5113 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5114 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5115 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5117 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5118 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5119 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5120 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5124 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5125 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5126 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5127 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5128 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5129 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5131 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5134 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5136 * Better support for C++ function names
5138 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5139 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5140 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5141 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5142 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5144 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5145 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5146 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5147 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5148 for the list of formats.
5150 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5152 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5153 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5154 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5155 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5156 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5157 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5160 * New 'maintenance' command
5162 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5163 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5164 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5166 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5167 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5168 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5169 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5170 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5171 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5173 The following commands are new:
5175 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5176 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5177 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5179 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5181 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5182 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5183 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5184 read after argv processing.
5186 * New hosts supported
5188 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5190 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5192 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5193 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5194 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5195 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5196 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5199 * New targets supported
5201 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5203 * More smarts about finding #include files
5205 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5206 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5207 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5208 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5209 the one that contains your sources.
5211 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5212 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5213 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5215 * Interesting infernals change
5217 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5218 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5219 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5220 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5222 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5224 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5225 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5226 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5228 See the ChangeLog for details.
5230 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5232 * New machines supported (host and target)
5234 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5236 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5238 * New malloc package
5240 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5241 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5242 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5243 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5244 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5245 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5249 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5250 'help info proc' for details.
5252 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5254 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5255 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5258 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5260 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5261 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5262 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5263 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5264 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5265 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5267 * Cross byte order fixes
5269 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5270 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5272 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5274 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5275 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5276 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5277 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5278 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5279 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5280 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5281 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5282 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5283 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5285 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5286 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5287 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5288 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5290 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5291 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5292 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5295 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5297 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5298 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5299 shared across multiple host platforms.
5301 * longjmp() handling
5303 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5304 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5305 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5306 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5310 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5311 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5316 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5317 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5318 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5320 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5322 * New machines supported (host and target)
5324 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5326 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5327 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5329 * New machines supported (target)
5331 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5335 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5336 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5337 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5339 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5340 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5341 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5342 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5343 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5346 * New features for SVR4
5348 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5349 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5350 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5352 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5353 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5354 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5356 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5357 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5359 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5361 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5362 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5363 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5364 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5365 same code linked statically.
5369 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5370 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5371 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5372 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5373 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5374 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5378 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5379 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5380 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5383 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5385 * New machines supported (host and target)
5387 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5388 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5389 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5391 * Almost SCO Unix support
5393 We had hoped to support:
5394 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5395 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5396 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5397 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5399 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5401 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5402 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5403 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5404 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5409 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5410 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5411 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5415 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5416 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5417 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5419 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5421 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5422 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5423 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5425 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5426 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5427 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5428 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5431 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5432 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5433 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5434 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5437 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5438 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5441 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5442 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5443 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5446 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5448 * Improved configuration
5450 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5451 Porting BFD is simpler.
5455 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5456 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5457 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5458 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5462 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5464 * New host supported (not target)
5466 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5469 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5471 * Multiple source language support
5473 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5474 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5475 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5476 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5477 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5478 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5482 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5483 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5484 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5485 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5487 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5488 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5489 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5491 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5492 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5496 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5497 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5498 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5499 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5502 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5504 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5505 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5506 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5507 examining core files.
5511 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5514 * New machines supported (host and target)
5516 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5517 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5518 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5520 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5522 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5524 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5526 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5527 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5528 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5530 * New remote interfaces
5536 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5540 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5542 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5543 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5544 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5545 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5546 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5547 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5548 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5549 stub on the target system.
5551 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5553 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5554 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5555 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5557 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5558 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5561 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5563 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5564 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5566 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5567 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5568 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5570 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5571 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5572 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5573 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5575 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5576 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5577 it is already running. Default is ON.
5579 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5580 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5581 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5582 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5585 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5586 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5587 or the value of the environment variable
5590 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5591 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5594 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5595 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5596 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5598 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5599 history expansion will be performed on
5600 command line input. The default is OFF.
5602 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5603 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5604 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5606 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5607 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5608 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5611 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5612 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5613 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5616 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5617 ``set width'' instead.
5619 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5620 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5621 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5622 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5624 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5627 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5630 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5633 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5636 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5638 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5639 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5640 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5644 * Support for Shared Libraries
5646 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5647 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5648 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5649 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5650 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5651 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5652 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5653 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5655 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5656 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5657 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5659 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5664 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5665 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5666 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5667 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5668 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5669 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5671 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5673 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5675 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5676 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5677 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5680 * C++ multiple inheritance
5682 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5685 * C++ exception handling
5687 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5688 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5689 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5692 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5693 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5694 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5696 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5697 current stack frame.
5700 * Minor command changes
5702 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5703 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5704 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5706 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5707 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5708 frames without printing.
5710 * New directory command
5712 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5713 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5714 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5715 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5716 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5718 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5720 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5723 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5724 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5725 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5726 where the program that you are debugging will run.
5728 * GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
5730 * Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
5732 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers $zmm0 - $zmm31 and
5733 $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.