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