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