1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 17
6 * Support for .gdb_index sections with version less than 7 has been
9 * GDB now accepts --no-escape-args as an alternative to --args on the
10 command line. GDB will not escape special shell characters within
11 arguments after --no-escape-args.
13 * gdbserver now accepts --no-escape-args as a command line flag. When
14 this flag is used gdbserver will not escape special shell characters
15 within the inferior arguments.
19 GNU/Linux/MicroBlaze (gdbserver) microblazeel-*linux*
21 * Changed remote packets
23 single-inf-arg in qSupported
24 The new single-inf-arg feature within the qSupported packet allows
25 GDB to inform the stub that it would like to send the inferior
26 arguments as a single string within the vRun packet. The stub can
27 reply with the single-inf-arg feature to indicate that it is able to
28 accept arguments as a single string.
32 * Debugging Linux programs that use x86-64 or x86-64 with 32-bit pointer
33 size (X32) Shadow Stacks are now supported.
35 * Support for the shadow stack pointer register on x86-64 or x86-64 with
36 32-bit pointer size (X32) GNU/Linux.
38 * Debugger Adapter Protocol changes
40 ** GDB now supports the "completions" request.
42 * "set style" commands now supports numeric format for basic colors
43 from 0 to 255 and #RRGGBB format for TrueColor.
45 * New built-in convenience variable $_colorsupport provides comma-separated
46 list of color space names supported by terminal. Each color space name is one
47 of monochrome, ansi_8color, aixterm_16color, xterm_256color or rgb_24bit.
48 It is handy for conditionally using styling colors based on terminal features.
51 (gdb) if $_regex ($_colorsupport, ".*(^|,)rgb_24bit($|,).*")
52 >set style filename background #FACADE
54 >if $_regex ($_colorsupport, ".*(^|,)xterm_256color($|,).*")
55 >set style filename background 224
57 >set style filename background red
61 * UST (static tracepoint) support from gdbserver has been removed.
63 * Linux checkpoint code has been updated to work with multiple inferiors.
65 * The gcore and gdb-add-index scripts now have a -v or --version
66 option, which prints the version number, and then exits. As well as
67 a -h or --help option, which prints each options and a brief
70 * On systems that support linker namespaces, the output of the command
71 "info sharedlibraries" may add one more column, NS, which identifies the
72 namespace into which the library was loaded, if more than one namespace
75 * New built-in convenience variables $linker_namespace_count and
76 $_linker_namespace. These show the number of active linker
77 namespaces, and the namespace to which the current location belongs to.
78 In systems that don't support linker namespaces, or if the inferior hasn't
79 started yet, these always return the integer 0.
81 * Add record full support for rv64gc architectures
83 * Debugging Linux programs that use AArch64 Guarded Control Stacks is now
88 maintenance check psymtabs
89 Renamed from maintenance check-psymtabs
91 maintenance check symtabs
92 Renamed from maintenance check-symtabs
94 maintenance canonicalize
95 Show the canonical form of a C++ name.
97 maintenance set console-translation-mode <binary|text>
98 maintenance show console-translation-mode
99 Controls the translation mode of GDB stdout/stderr. MS-Windows only. In
100 binary mode, no translation is done. In text mode, a Line Feed is
101 translated into a Carriage Return-Line Feed combination.
103 set riscv numeric-register-names on|off
104 show riscv numeric-register-names
105 Controls whether GDB refers to risc-v registers by their numeric names
106 (e.g 'x1') or their abi names (e.g. 'ra').
107 Defaults to 'off', matching the old behaviour (abi names).
109 set style emoji on|off|auto
111 Controls whether GDB can display emoji. The default is "auto",
112 which means emoji will be displayed in some situations when
113 the host charset is UTF-8.
115 set style warning-prefix STRING
116 set style error-prefix STRING
117 These commands control the prefix that is printed before warnings
118 and errors, respectively. This functionality is intended for use
119 with emoji display, and so the prefixes are only displayed if emoji
122 info linker-namespaces
123 info linker-namespaces [[N]]
124 Print information about the given linker namespace (identified as N),
125 or about all the namespaces if no argument is given.
130 On Linux and FreeBSD, the addresses shown in the output of this
131 command are now for the full memory range allocated to the shared
134 info threads [-gid] [-stopped] [-running] [ID]...
135 If no threads match the given ID(s) or filter options, GDB now prints
139 without printing the provided arguments. The newly added '-stopped'
140 option makes GDB list the stopped threads only. Similarly,
141 '-running' makes GDB list the running threads only. If both options
142 are given together, both stopped and running threads are listed.
143 These new flags can be useful to get a reduced list when there is a
144 large number of threads.
146 * GDB-internal Thread Local Storage (TLS) support
148 ** Linux targets for the x86_64, aarch64, ppc64, s390x, and riscv
149 architectures now have GDB-internal support for TLS address
150 lookup in addition to that traditionally provided by the
151 libthread_db library. This internal support works for programs
152 linked against either the GLIBC or MUSL C libraries. For
153 programs linked against MUSL, this new internal support provides
154 new debug functionality, allowing access to TLS variables, due to
155 the fact that MUSL does not implement the libthread_db library.
156 Internal TLS support is also useful in cross-debugging
157 situations, debugging statically linked binaries, and debugging
158 programs linked against GLIBC 2.33 and earlier, but which are not
159 linked against libpthread.
161 ** The command 'maint set force-internal-tls-address-lookup on' may
162 be used to force the internal TLS lookup mechanisms to be used.
163 Otherwise, TLS lookup via libthread_db will still be preferred,
168 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 3.4.
170 ** New class gdb.Color for dealing with colors.
172 ** New constant gdb.PARAM_COLOR represents color type of a
173 gdb.Parameter.value. Parameter's value is gdb.Color instance.
175 ** The memory_source argument (the second argument) has been removed
176 from gdb.disassembler.builtin_disassemble. This argument was
177 never used by GDB, and was added by mistake. The unused argument
178 was never documented in the GDB manual, so users should not have
181 ** gdb.execute has an additional 'styling' argument. When True, then
182 output will be styled. The default for this argument is True
183 when output is going to standard output, and False when output is
186 ** Setting the documentation string (__doc__) of a gdb.Parameter
187 sub-class to the empty string, means GDB will only display the
188 set_doc or show_doc strings in the set/show help output.
190 ** New gdb.ParameterPrefix class. This can be used to create 'set'
191 and 'show' gdb.Command prefixes, suitable for use with new
194 ** Prefix commands (gdb.Command sub-classes) that don't have an
195 invoke method will now behave like builtin prefix commands when
196 invoked without a sub-command name. This means printing the help
197 text for all sub-commands, unless the prefix command is a 'show'
198 command, in which case the value of all sub-commands is printed.
200 ** New gdb.warning() function that takes a string and prints it as a
201 warning, with GDB's standard 'warning' prefix.
203 ** New attribute gdb.Value.is_unavailable, this checks for
204 unavailability like gdb.Value.is_optimized_out checks for
205 optimized out values.
209 ** New type <gdb:color> for dealing with colors.
211 ** New constant PARAM_COLOR represents color type of a value
212 of a <gdb:parameter> object. Parameter's value is <gdb::color> instance.
214 ** Eliding the #:doc string from make-parameter now means that GDB
215 will use a default documentation string. Setting #:doc to the
216 empty string for make-parameter means GDB will only display the
217 #:set_doc or #:show_doc strings in the set/show help output.
219 ** Prefix commands (using make-command) that don't have a #:invoke
220 property will now behave like builtin prefix commands when
221 invoked without a sub-command name. This means printing the help
222 text for all sub-commands, unless the prefix command is a 'show'
223 command, in which case the value of all sub-commands is printed.
227 binary-upload in qSupported reply
228 If the stub sends back 'binary-upload+' in it's qSupported reply,
229 then GDB will, where possible, make use of the 'x' packet. If the
230 stub doesn't report this feature supported, then GDB will not use
234 Return information about files on the remote system. Like
235 vFile:stat but if the filename is a symbolic link, return
236 information about the link itself, the file the link refers to.
238 * Changed remote packets
241 The XML that is sent as a response can now include an "id_str"
242 attribute for a thread element. The attribute indicates what GDB
243 should print as the target ID of the thread, for example in the
244 "info threads" command or when switching to the thread.
247 Previously, gdbserver incorrectly implemented this packet using
248 lstat rather than stat. This has now been corrected. The
249 documentation has also been clarified.
253 ** The =library-unloaded event now includes the 'ranges' field, which
254 has the same meaning as for the =library-loaded event.
256 ** The =library-unloaded event now includes the 'still-in-use' field.
257 This field is 'true' when a library is unloaded (removed from the
258 inferior's list of loaded libraries), but the mapping within the
259 inferior's address space is retained, as the library was mapped
260 multiple times, and the same mapping was being reused. In all
261 other cases, this field will have the value 'false'.
263 * Support for stabs debugging format and the a.out/dbx object format is
264 deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 18.
268 --enable-binary-file-formats=[FORMAT,...]
269 --enable-binary-file-formats=all
270 A user can now decide to only compile support for certain file formats.
271 The available formats at this point are: dbx, coff, xcoff, elf, mach-o
272 and mips. Some targets require specific file formats to be available,
273 and in such cases, the configure script will warn the user and add
274 support anyway. By default, all formats will be compiled in, to
275 continue the behavior from before adding the switch.
277 * A new configure option was added, allowing support for the compile
278 subsystem to be disabled at configure time, in the form of
279 --disable-gdb-compile.
281 * A new configure option was added, allowing support for DWARF debug
282 information to be disabled at configure time. The flag is
283 --disable-gdb-dwarf-support.
285 * A new configure option was added, allowing support for mdebug/ecoff
286 debug information to be disabled at configure time. The flag to do
287 that is --disable-gdb-mdebug-support.
289 * The Alpha target now supports target descriptions.
291 *** Changes in GDB 16
293 * Support for Nios II targets has been removed as this architecture
294 has been EOL'ed by Intel.
296 * GDB now supports watchpoints for tagged data pointers (see
297 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagged_pointer) on amd64, such as the
298 one used by the Linear Address Masking (LAM) feature provided by
301 * Debugging support for Intel MPX has been removed. This includes the
303 ** MPX register support
304 ** the commands "show/set mpx bound" (deprecated since GDB 15)
305 ** i386 and amd64 implementation of the hooks report_signal_info and
308 * GDB now supports printing of asynchronous events from the Intel Processor
309 Trace during 'record instruction-history', 'record function-call-history'
310 and all stepping commands. This can be controlled with the new
311 "set record btrace pt event-tracing" command.
313 * GDB now supports printing of ptwrite payloads from the Intel Processor
314 Trace during 'record instruction-history', 'record function-call-history'
315 and all stepping commands. The payload is also accessible in Python as a
316 RecordAuxiliary object. Printing is customizable via a ptwrite filter
317 function in Python. By default, the raw ptwrite payload is printed for
318 each ptwrite that is encountered.
320 * For breakpoints that are created in the 'pending' state, any
321 'thread' or 'task' keywords are parsed at the time the breakpoint is
322 created, rather than at the time the breakpoint becomes non-pending.
324 * Thread-specific breakpoints are only inserted into the program space
325 in which the thread of interest is running. In most cases program
326 spaces are unique for each inferior, so this means that
327 thread-specific breakpoints will usually only be inserted for the
328 inferior containing the thread of interest. The breakpoint will
329 be hit no less than before.
331 * For ARM targets, the offset of the pc in the jmp_buf has been fixed to match
332 glibc 2.20 and later. This should only matter when not using libc probes.
333 This may cause breakage when using an incompatible libc, like uclibc or
334 newlib, or an older glibc.
336 * MTE (Memory Tagging Extension) debugging is now supported on AArch64 baremetal
339 * Remove support (native and remote) for QNX Neutrino (triplet
342 * In a record session, when a forward emulation reaches the end of the reverse
343 history, the warning message has been changed to indicate that the end of the
344 history has been reached. It also specifies that the forward execution can
345 continue, and the recording will also continue.
347 * The Ada 'Object_Size attribute is now supported.
349 * Support for process record/replay and reverse debugging on loongarch*-linux*
350 targets has been added.
352 * New bash script gstack uses GDB to print stack traces of running processes.
356 ** Added gdb.record.clear. Clears the trace data of the current recording.
357 This forces re-decoding of the trace for successive commands.
359 ** Added the new event source gdb.tui_enabled.
361 ** New module gdb.missing_objfile that facilitates dealing with
362 missing objfiles when opening a core-file.
364 ** New function gdb.missing_objfile.register_handler that can
365 register an instance of a sub-class of
366 gdb.missing_debug.MissingObjfileHandler as a handler for missing
369 ** New class gdb.missing_objfile.MissingObjfileHandler which can be
370 sub-classed to create handlers for missing objfiles.
372 ** The 'signed' argument to gdb.Architecture.integer_type() will no
373 longer accept non-bool types.
375 ** The gdb.MICommand.installed property can only be set to True or
378 ** The 'qualified' argument to gdb.Breakpoint constructor will no
379 longer accept non-bool types.
381 ** Added the gdb.Symbol.is_artificial attribute.
383 ** Added gdb.Block.subblocks. Returns a list of blocks contained in that
386 ** Added gdb.Symbol.domain. Contains the domain of the symbol.
388 ** Added gdb.Architecture.void_type. Returns a gdb.Type representing "void"
389 type for that architecture.
391 * Debugger Adapter Protocol changes
393 ** The "scopes" request will now return a scope holding global
394 variables from the stack frame's compilation unit.
396 ** The "scopes" request will return a "returnValue" scope holding
397 the return value from the latest "stepOut" command, when
400 ** The "launch" and "attach" requests were rewritten in accordance
401 with some clarifications to the spec. Now they can be sent at
402 any time after the "initialized" event, but will not take effect
403 (or send a response) until after the "configurationDone" request
406 ** The "variables" request will not return artificial symbols.
410 show jit-reader-directory
411 Show the name of the directory that "jit-reader-load" uses for
414 set style line-number foreground COLOR
415 set style line-number background COLOR
416 set style line-number intensity VALUE
417 Control the styling of line numbers printed by GDB.
419 set style command foreground COLOR
420 set style command background COLOR
421 set style command intensity VALUE
422 Control the styling of GDB commands when displayed by GDB.
424 set style title foreground COLOR
425 set style title background COLOR
426 set style title intensity VALUE
427 This style now applies to the header line of lists, for example the
428 first line of the output of "info breakpoints". Previous uses of
429 this style have been replaced with the new "command" style.
431 set warn-language-frame-mismatch [on|off]
432 show warn-language-frame-mismatch
433 Control the warning that is emitted when specifying a language that
434 does not match the current frame's language.
436 maintenance info inline-frames [ADDRESS]
437 New command which displays GDB's inline-frame information for the
438 current address, or for ADDRESS if specified. The output identifies
439 inlined frames which start at the specified address.
441 maintenance info blocks [ADDRESS]
442 New command which displays information about all of the blocks at
443 ADDRESS, or at the current address if ADDRESS is not given. Blocks
444 are listed starting at the inner global block out to the most inner
447 maintenance frame-unwinder disable [-all | -name NAME | [-class] CLASS]
448 maintenance frame-unwinder enable [-all | -name NAME | [-class] CLASS]
449 Enable or disable frame unwinders. This is only meant to be used when
450 testing unwinders themselves, and you want to ensure that a fallback
451 algorithm won't obscure a regression. GDB is not expected to behave
452 well if you try to execute the inferior with unwinders disabled.
454 info missing-objfile-handlers
455 List all the registered missing-objfile handlers.
457 enable missing-objfile-handler LOCUS HANDLER
458 disable missing-objfile-handler LOCUS HANDLER
459 Enable or disable a missing-objfile handler with a name matching the
460 regular expression HANDLER, in LOCUS.
462 LOCUS can be 'global' to operate on global missing-objfile handler,
463 'progspace' to operate on handlers within the current program space,
464 or can be a regular expression which is matched against the filename
465 of the primary executable in each program space.
470 This command now supports file-name completion.
472 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
473 The ADDRESS expression can now be a full expression consisting of
474 multiple terms, e.g. 'function + 0x1000' (without quotes),
475 previously only a single term could be given.
484 These commands now require their filename argument to be quoted if
485 it contains white space or quote characters. If the argument
486 contains no such special characters then quoting is not required.
488 maintenance print remote-registers
489 Add an "Expedited" column to the output of the command. It indicates
490 which registers were included in the last stop reply packet received by
493 maintenance info frame-unwinders
494 Add a CLASS column to the output. This class is a somewhat arbitrary
495 grouping of unwinders, based on which area of GDB adds the unwinder.
496 Also add an ENABLED column, that will show if the unwinder is enabled
499 maintenance set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
500 This command has been removed because the same functionality can be
501 achieved with maint frame-unwinder (enable|disable) DEBUGINFO.
503 maintenance show dwarf unwinders
504 This command has been removed since the functionality can be achieved
505 by checking the last column of maint info frame-unwinders.
508 Now includes the version of GNU Readline library that GDB is using.
513 Return information about files on the remote system. Like
514 vFile:fstat but takes a filename rather than an open file
518 Given ADDR and LENGTH, fetch LENGTH units from the memory at address
519 ADDR and send the fetched data in binary format. This packet is
520 equivalent to 'm', except that the data in the response are in
523 *** Changes in GDB 15
525 * The MPX commands "show/set mpx bound" have been deprecated, as Intel
526 listed MPX as removed in 2019.
528 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++17 compiler.
529 For example, GCC 9 or later.
531 * GDB index now contains information about the main function. This speeds up
532 startup when it is being used for some large binaries.
534 * On hosts where threading is available, DWARF reading is now done in
535 the background, resulting in faster startup. This can be controlled
536 using "maint set dwarf synchronous".
541 Attempting to use both the 'r' and 'b' flags with the disassemble
542 command will now give an error. Previously the 'b' flag would
543 always override the 'r' flag.
547 GDB now generates sparse core files, on systems that support it.
549 maintenance info line-table
550 Add an EPILOGUE-BEGIN column to the output of the command. It indicates
551 if the line is considered the start of the epilogue, and thus a point at
552 which the frame can be considered destroyed.
554 set unwindonsignal on|off
556 These commands are now aliases for the new set/show unwind-on-signal.
559 This command now gives an error if any unexpected arguments are
560 found after the command.
563 When using the command "list ." in a location that has no debug information
564 or no file loaded, GDB now says that there is no debug information to print
565 lines. This makes it more obvious that there is no information, as opposed
566 to implying there is no inferior loaded.
570 info missing-debug-handler
571 List all the registered missing debug handlers.
573 enable missing-debug-handler LOCUS HANDLER
574 disable missing-debug-handler LOCUS HANDLER
575 Enable or disable a missing debug handler with a name matching the
576 regular expression HANDLER, in LOCUS.
578 LOCUS can be 'global' to operate on global missing debug handler,
579 'progspace' to operate on handlers within the current program space,
580 or can be a regular expression which is matched against the filename
581 of the primary executable in each program space.
583 maintenance info linux-lwps
584 List all LWPs under control of the linux-nat target.
586 set remote thread-options-packet
587 show remote thread-options-packet
588 Set/show the use of the thread options packet.
590 set direct-call-timeout SECONDS
591 show direct-call-timeout
592 set indirect-call-timeout SECONDS
593 show indirect-call-timeout
594 These new settings can be used to limit how long GDB will wait for
595 an inferior function call to complete. The direct timeout is used
596 for inferior function calls from e.g. 'call' and 'print' commands,
597 while the indirect timeout is used for inferior function calls from
598 within a conditional breakpoint expression.
600 The default for the direct timeout is unlimited, while the default
601 for the indirect timeout is 30 seconds.
603 These timeouts will only have an effect for targets that are
604 operating in async mode. For non-async targets the timeouts are
605 ignored, GDB will wait indefinitely for an inferior function to
606 complete, unless interrupted by the user using Ctrl-C.
608 set unwind-on-timeout on|off
609 show unwind-on-timeout
610 These commands control whether GDB should unwind the stack when a
611 timeout occurs during an inferior function call. The default is
612 off, in which case the inferior will remain in the frame where the
613 timeout occurred. When on, GDB will unwind the stack removing the
614 dummy frame that was added for the inferior call, and restoring the
615 inferior state to how it was before the inferior call started.
617 set unwind-on-signal on|off
618 show unwind-on-signal
619 These new commands replaces the existing set/show unwindonsignal. The
620 old command is maintained as an alias.
622 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
624 ** The --remote-debug and --event-loop-debug command line options
627 ** The --debug command line option now takes an optional comma
628 separated list of components to emit debug for. The currently
629 supported components are: all, threads, event-loop, and remote.
630 If no components are given then threads is assumed.
632 ** The 'monitor set remote-debug' and 'monitor set event-loop-debug'
633 command have been removed.
635 ** The 'monitor set debug 0|1' command has been extended to take a
636 component name, e.g.: 'monitor set debug COMPONENT off|on'.
637 Possible component names are: all, threads, event-loop, and
642 ** New function gdb.notify_mi(NAME, DATA), that emits custom
643 GDB/MI async notification.
645 ** New read/write attribute gdb.Value.bytes that contains a bytes
646 object holding the contents of this value.
648 ** New module gdb.missing_debug that facilitates dealing with
649 objfiles that are missing any debug information.
651 ** New function gdb.missing_debug.register_handler that can register
652 an instance of a sub-class of gdb.missing_debug.MissingDebugInfo
653 as a handler for objfiles that are missing debug information.
655 ** New class gdb.missing_debug.MissingDebugInfo which can be
656 sub-classed to create handlers for objfiles with missing debug
659 ** Stop events now have a "details" attribute that holds a
660 dictionary that carries the same information as an MI "*stopped"
663 ** New function gdb.interrupt(), that interrupts GDB as if the user
666 ** New gdb.InferiorThread.ptid_string attribute. This read-only
667 attribute contains the string that appears in the 'Target Id'
668 column of the 'info threads' command output.
670 ** It is no longer possible to create new gdb.Progspace object using
671 'gdb.Progspace()', this will result in a TypeError. Progspace
672 objects can still be obtained through calling other API
673 functions, for example 'gdb.current_progspace()'.
675 ** User defined attributes can be added to a gdb.Inferior object,
676 these will be stored in the object's new Inferior.__dict__
679 ** User defined attributes can be added to a gdb.InferiorThread
680 object, these will be stored in the object's new
681 InferiorThread.__dict__ attribute.
683 ** New constants gdb.SYMBOL_TYPE_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTION_DOMAIN,
684 and gdb.SEARCH_*_DOMAIN corresponding to all the existing symbol
685 domains. Symbol lookup can now search in multiple domains at
686 once, and can also narrowly search for just a type or function.
688 * Debugger Adapter Protocol changes
690 ** GDB now emits the "process" event.
692 ** GDB now supports the "cancel" request.
694 ** The "attach" request now supports specifying the program.
696 ** New command "set debug dap-log-level" controls DAP logging.
698 ** The "set debug dap-log-file" command is now documented. This
699 command was available in GDB 14 but not documented.
703 ** New constants SYMBOL_TYPE_DOMAIN, SYMBOL_FUNCTION_DOMAIN, and
704 SEARCH_*_DOMAIN corresponding to all the existing symbol domains.
705 Symbol lookup can now search in multiple domains at once, and can
706 also narrowly search for just a type or function.
710 New stop reason: clone
711 Indicates that a clone system call was executed.
714 Enable/disable optional event reporting, on a per-thread basis.
715 Currently supported options are GDB_THREAD_OPTION_CLONE, to enable
716 clone event reporting, and GDB_THREAD_OPTION_EXIT to enable thread
717 exit event reporting.
719 QThreadOptions in qSupported
720 The qSupported packet allows GDB to inform the stub it supports the
721 QThreadOptions packet, and the qSupported response can contain the
722 set of thread options the remote stub supports.
725 This new packet allows GDB to query the stub about a given address to check
726 if it is tagged or not. Many memory tagging-related GDB commands need to
727 perform this check before they read/write the allocation tag related to an
728 address. Currently, however, this is done through a 'vFile' request to read
729 the file /proc/<PID>/smaps and check if the address is in a region reported
730 as memory tagged. Since not all targets have a notion of what the smaps
731 file is about, this new packet provides a more generic way to perform such
734 *** Changes in GDB 14
736 * GDB now supports the AArch64 Scalable Matrix Extension 2 (SME2), which
737 includes a new 512 bit lookup table register named ZT0.
739 * GDB now supports the AArch64 Scalable Matrix Extension (SME), which includes
740 a new matrix register named ZA, a new thread register TPIDR2 and a new vector
741 length register SVG (streaming vector granule). GDB also supports tracking
742 ZA state across signal frames.
744 Some features are still under development or are dependent on ABI specs that
745 are still in alpha stage. For example, manual function calls with ZA state
746 don't have any special handling, and tracking of SVG changes based on
747 DWARF information is still not implemented, but there are plans to do so in
750 * GDB now recognizes the NO_COLOR environment variable and disables
751 styling according to the spec. See https://no-color.org/.
752 Styling can be re-enabled with "set style enabled on".
754 * The AArch64 'org.gnu.gdb.aarch64.pauth' Pointer Authentication feature string
755 has been deprecated in favor of the 'org.gnu.gdb.aarch64.pauth_v2' feature
758 * GDB now has some support for integer types larger than 64 bits.
760 * Removed targets and native configurations
762 GDB no longer supports AIX 4.x, AIX 5.x and AIX 6.x. The minimum supported
763 AIX version is now AIX 7.1.
765 * Multi-target feature configuration
767 GDB now supports the individual configuration of remote targets' feature
768 sets. Based on the current selection of a target, the commands 'set remote
769 <name>-packet (on|off|auto)' and 'show remote <name>-packet' can be used to
770 configure a target's feature packet and to display its configuration,
773 The individual packet sizes can be configured and shown using the commands
774 ** 'set remote memory-read-packet-size (number of bytes|fixed|limit)'
775 ** 'set remote memory-write-packet-size (number of bytes|fixed|limit)'
776 ** 'show remote memory-read-packet-size'
777 ** 'show remote memory-write-packet-size'.
779 The configuration of the packet itself, as well as the size of a memory-read
780 or memory-write packet applies to the currently selected target (if
781 available). If no target is selected, it applies to future remote
782 connections. Similarly, the show commands print the configuration of the
783 currently selected target. If no remote target is selected, the default
784 configuration for future connections is shown.
786 * GDB has initial built-in support for the Debugger Adapter Protocol.
787 This support requires that GDB be built with Python scripting
790 * For the break command, multiple uses of the 'thread' or 'task'
791 keywords will now give an error instead of just using the thread or
792 task id from the last instance of the keyword. E.g.:
793 break foo thread 1 thread 2
794 will now give an error rather than using 'thread 2'.
796 * For the watch command, multiple uses of the 'task' keyword will now
797 give an error instead of just using the task id from the last
798 instance of the keyword. E.g.:
799 watch my_var task 1 task 2
800 will now give an error rather than using 'task 2'. The 'thread'
801 keyword already gave an error when used multiple times with the
802 watch command, this remains unchanged.
804 * The 'set print elements' setting now helps when printing large arrays.
805 If an array would otherwise exceed max-value-size, but 'print elements'
806 is set such that the size of elements to print is less than or equal
807 to 'max-value-size', GDB will now still print the array, however only
808 'max-value-size' worth of data will be added into the value history.
810 * For both the break and watch commands, it is now invalid to use both
811 the 'thread' and 'task' keywords within the same command. For
812 example the following commands will now give an error:
813 break foo thread 1 task 1
814 watch var thread 2 task 3
816 * The printf command now accepts a '%V' output format which will
817 format an expression just as the 'print' command would. Print
818 options can be placed within '[...]' after the '%V' to modify how
819 the value is printed. E.g:
820 printf "%V", some_array
821 printf "%V[-array-indexes on]", some_array
822 will print the array without, or with array indexes included, just
823 as the array would be printed by the 'print' command. This
824 functionality is also available for dprintf when dprintf-style is
827 * When the printf command requires a string to be fetched from the
828 inferior, GDB now uses the existing 'max-value-size' setting to the
829 limit the memory allocated within GDB. The default 'max-value-size'
830 is 64k. To print longer strings you should increase
833 * The Ada 2022 Enum_Rep and Enum_Val attributes are now supported.
835 * The Ada 2022 target name symbol ('@') is now supported by the Ada
838 * The 'list' command now accepts '.' as an argument, which tells GDB to
839 print the location around the point of execution within the current frame.
840 If the inferior hasn't started yet, the command will print around the
841 beginning of the 'main' function.
843 * Using the 'list' command with no arguments in a situation where the
844 command would attempt to list past the end of the file now warns the
845 user that the end of file has been reached, refers the user to the
846 newly added '.' argument
848 * Breakpoints can now be inferior-specific. This is similar to the
849 existing thread-specific breakpoint support. Breakpoint conditions
850 can include the 'inferior' keyword followed by an inferior id (as
851 displayed in the 'info inferiors' output). It is invalid to use the
852 'inferior' keyword with either the 'thread' or 'task' keywords when
853 creating a breakpoint.
855 * New convenience function "$_shell", to execute a shell command and
856 return the result. This lets you run shell commands in expressions.
859 (gdb) p $_shell("true")
861 (gdb) p $_shell("false")
863 (gdb) break func if $_shell("some command") == 0
867 --additional-debug-dirs=PATHs
869 Provide a colon-separated list of additional directories to search for
870 separate debug info. These directories are added to the default value of
871 the 'debug-file-directory' GDB parameter.
875 set debug breakpoint on|off
876 show debug breakpoint
877 Print additional debug messages about breakpoint insertion and removal.
879 maintenance print record-instruction [ N ]
880 Print the recorded information for a given instruction. If N is not given
881 prints how GDB would undo the last instruction executed. If N is negative,
882 prints how GDB would undo the N-th previous instruction, and if N is
883 positive, it prints how GDB will redo the N-th following instruction.
885 maintenance info frame-unwinders
886 List the frame unwinders currently in effect, starting with the highest
889 maintenance wait-for-index-cache
890 Wait until all pending writes to the index cache have completed.
892 set always-read-ctf on|off
894 When off, CTF is only read if DWARF is not present. When on, CTF is
895 read regardless of whether DWARF is present. Off by default.
898 Get main symbol to identify entry point into program.
900 set tui mouse-events [on|off]
901 show tui mouse-events
902 When on (default), mouse clicks control the TUI and can be accessed by
903 Python extensions. When off, mouse clicks are handled by the terminal,
904 enabling terminal-native text selection.
908 ** MI version 1 has been removed.
910 ** mi now reports 'no-history' as a stop reason when hitting the end of the
911 reverse execution history.
913 ** When creating a thread-specific breakpoint using the '-p' option,
914 the -break-insert command would report the 'thread' field twice in
915 the reply. The content of both fields was always identical. This
916 has now been fixed; the 'thread' field will be reported just once
917 for thread-specific breakpoints, or not at all for breakpoints
918 without a thread restriction. The same is also true for the 'task'
919 field of an Ada task-specific breakpoint.
921 ** It is no longer possible to create a thread-specific breakpoint for
922 a thread that doesn't exist using '-break-insert -p ID'. Creating
923 breakpoints for non-existent threads is not allowed when using the
924 CLI, that the MI allowed it was a long standing bug, which has now
927 ** The '--simple-values' argument to the '-stack-list-arguments',
928 '-stack-list-locals', '-stack-list-variables', and '-var-list-children'
929 commands now takes reference types into account: that is, a value is now
930 considered simple if it is neither an array, structure, or union, nor a
931 reference to an array, structure, or union. (Previously all references were
932 considered simple.) Support for this feature can be verified by using the
933 '-list-features' command, which should contain "simple-values-ref-types".
935 ** The -break-insert command now accepts a '-g thread-group-id' option
936 to allow for the creation of inferior-specific breakpoints.
938 ** The bkpt tuple, which appears in breakpoint-created notifications,
939 and in the result of the -break-insert command can now include an
940 optional 'inferior' field for both the main breakpoint, and each
941 location, when the breakpoint is inferior-specific.
945 ** gdb.ThreadExitedEvent added. Emits a ThreadEvent.
947 ** The gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.name attribute is now read-only.
949 ** The name argument passed to gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.__init__ must
950 now be of type 'str' otherwise a TypeError will be raised.
952 ** The gdb.unwinder.Unwinder.enabled attribute can now only accept
953 values of type 'bool'. Changing this attribute will now
954 invalidate GDB's frame-cache, which means GDB will need to
955 rebuild its frame-cache when next required - either with, or
956 without the particular unwinder, depending on how 'enabled' was
959 ** New methods added to the gdb.PendingFrame class. These methods
960 have the same behavior as the corresponding methods on
961 gdb.Frame. The new methods are:
963 - gdb.PendingFrame.name: Return the name for the frame's
965 - gdb.PendingFrame.is_valid: Return True if the pending frame
967 - gdb.PendingFrame.pc: Return the $pc register value for this
969 - gdb.PendingFrame.language: Return a string containing the
970 language for this frame, or None.
971 - gdb.PendingFrame.find_sal: Return a gdb.Symtab_and_line
972 object for the current location within the pending frame, or
974 - gdb.PendingFrame.block: Return a gdb.Block for the current
975 pending frame, or None.
976 - gdb.PendingFrame.function: Return a gdb.Symbol for the
977 current pending frame, or None.
979 ** The frame-id passed to gdb.PendingFrame.create_unwind_info can
980 now use either an integer or a gdb.Value object for each of its
981 'sp', 'pc', and 'special' attributes.
983 ** A new class gdb.unwinder.FrameId has been added. Instances of
984 this class are constructed with 'sp' (stack-pointer) and 'pc'
985 (program-counter) values, and can be used as the frame-id when
986 calling gdb.PendingFrame.create_unwind_info.
988 ** It is now no longer possible to sub-class the
989 gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult type.
991 ** The Disassembler API from the gdb.disassembler module has been
992 extended to include styling support:
994 - The DisassemblerResult class can now be initialized with a list
995 of parts. Each part represents part of the disassembled
996 instruction along with the associated style information. This
997 list of parts can be accessed with the new
998 DisassemblerResult.parts property.
1000 - New constants gdb.disassembler.STYLE_* representing all the
1001 different styles part of an instruction might have.
1003 - New methods DisassembleInfo.text_part and
1004 DisassembleInfo.address_part which are used to create the new
1005 styled parts of a disassembled instruction.
1007 - Changes are backwards compatible, the older API can still be
1008 used to disassemble instructions without styling.
1010 ** New function gdb.execute_mi(COMMAND, [ARG]...), that invokes a
1011 GDB/MI command and returns the output as a Python dictionary.
1013 ** New function gdb.block_signals(). This returns a context manager
1014 that blocks any signals that GDB needs to handle itself.
1016 ** New class gdb.Thread. This is a subclass of threading.Thread
1017 that calls gdb.block_signals in its "start" method.
1019 ** gdb.parse_and_eval now has a new "global_context" parameter.
1020 This can be used to request that the parse only examine global
1023 ** gdb.Inferior now has a new "arguments" attribute. This holds the
1024 command-line arguments to the inferior, if known.
1026 ** gdb.Inferior now has a new "main_name" attribute. This holds the
1027 name of the inferior's "main", if known.
1029 ** gdb.Inferior now has new methods "clear_env", "set_env", and
1030 "unset_env". These can be used to modify the inferior's
1031 environment before it is started.
1033 ** gdb.Value now has the 'assign' method.
1035 ** gdb.Value now has the 'to_array' method. This converts an
1036 array-like Value to an array.
1038 ** gdb.Progspace now has the new method "objfile_for_address". This
1039 returns the gdb.Objfile, if any, that covers a given address.
1041 ** gdb.Breakpoint now has an "inferior" attribute. If the
1042 Breakpoint object is inferior specific then this attribute holds
1043 the inferior-id (an integer). If the Breakpoint object is not
1044 inferior specific, then this field contains None. This field can
1047 ** gdb.Type now has the "is_array_like" and "is_string_like"
1048 methods. These reflect GDB's internal idea of whether a type
1049 might be array- or string-like, even if they do not have the
1050 corresponding type code.
1052 ** gdb.ValuePrinter is a new class that can be used as the base
1053 class for the result of applying a pretty-printer. As a base
1054 class, it signals to gdb that the printer may implement new
1055 pretty-printer methods.
1057 ** New attribute Progspace.symbol_file. This attribute holds the
1058 gdb.Objfile that corresponds to Progspace.filename (when
1059 Progspace.filename is not None), otherwise, this attribute is
1062 ** New attribute Progspace.executable_filename. This attribute
1063 holds a string containing a file name set by the "exec-file" or
1064 "file" commands, or None if no executable file is set. This
1065 isn't the exact string passed by the user to these commands; the
1066 file name will have been partially resolved to an absolute file
1069 ** A new executable_changed event registry is available. This event
1070 emits ExecutableChangedEvent objects, which have 'progspace' (a
1071 gdb.Progspace) and 'reload' (a Boolean) attributes. This event
1072 is emitted when gdb.Progspace.executable_filename changes.
1074 ** New event registries gdb.events.new_progspace and
1075 gdb.events.free_progspace, these emit NewProgspaceEvent and
1076 FreeProgspaceEvent event types respectively. Both of these event
1077 types have a single 'progspace' attribute, which is the
1078 gdb.Progspace that is either being added to GDB, or removed from
1081 ** gdb.LazyString now implements the __str__ method.
1083 ** New method gdb.Frame.static_link that returns the outer frame
1084 of a nested function frame.
1086 *** Changes in GDB 13
1088 * MI version 1 is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 14.
1090 * GDB now supports dumping memory tag data for AArch64 MTE. It also supports
1091 reading memory tag data for AArch64 MTE from core files generated by
1092 the gcore command or the Linux kernel.
1094 When a process uses memory-mapped pages protected by memory tags (for
1095 example, AArch64 MTE), this additional information will be recorded in
1096 the core file in the event of a crash or if GDB generates a core file
1097 from the current process state. GDB will show this additional information
1098 automatically, or through one of the memory-tag subcommands.
1100 * Scheduler-locking and new threads
1102 When scheduler-locking is in effect, only the current thread may run
1103 when the inferior is resumed. However, previously, new threads
1104 created by the resumed thread would still be able to run free. Now,
1105 they are held stopped.
1107 * "info breakpoints" now displays enabled breakpoint locations of
1108 disabled breakpoints as in the "y-" state. For example:
1110 (gdb) info breakpoints
1111 Num Type Disp Enb Address What
1112 1 breakpoint keep n <MULTIPLE>
1113 1.1 y- 0x00000000000011b6 in ...
1114 1.2 y- 0x00000000000011c2 in ...
1115 1.3 n 0x00000000000011ce in ...
1117 * Support for Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on FreeBSD arm and
1118 aarch64 architectures.
1120 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on FreeBSD/Aarch64.
1122 * Remove support for building against Python 2, it is now only possible to
1123 build GDB against Python 3.
1125 * DBX mode has been removed.
1127 * GDB now honours the DWARF prologue_end line-table entry flag the compiler can
1128 emit to indicate where a breakpoint should be placed to break in a function
1131 * Completion now also offers "NUMBER" for "set" commands that accept
1132 a numeric argument and the "unlimited" keyword. For example:
1134 (gdb) set width <TAB>
1139 (gdb) complete set width
1143 * Disassembler styling using libopcodes. GDB now supports
1144 disassembler styling using libopcodes. This is only available for
1145 some targets (currently x86 and RISC-V). For unsupported targets
1146 Python Pygments is still used. For supported targets, libopcodes
1147 styling is used by default.
1149 * The Windows native target now supports target async.
1151 * gdb now supports zstd compressed debug sections (ELFCOMPRESS_ZSTD) for ELF.
1153 * The format of 'disassemble /r' and 'record instruction-history /r'
1154 has changed. The instruction bytes could now be grouped together,
1155 and displayed in the endianness of the instruction. This is the
1156 same layout as used by GNU objdump when disassembling.
1158 There is now 'disassemble /b' and 'record instruction-history /b'
1159 which will always display the instructions bytes one at a time in
1160 memory order, that is, the byte at the lowest address first.
1162 For both /r and /b GDB is now better at using whitespace in order to
1163 align the disassembled instruction text.
1165 * The TUI no longer styles the source and assembly code highlighted by
1166 the current position indicator by default. You can however
1167 re-enable styling using the new "set style tui-current-position"
1170 * New convenience variable $_inferior_thread_count contains the number
1171 of live threads in the current inferior.
1173 * When a breakpoint with multiple code locations is hit, GDB now prints
1174 the code location using the syntax <breakpoint_number>.<location_number>
1176 Thread 1 "zeoes" hit Breakpoint 2.3, some_func () at zeoes.c:8
1178 * When a breakpoint is hit, GDB now sets the convenience variables $_hit_bpnum
1179 and $_hit_locno to the hit breakpoint number and code location number.
1180 This allows to disable the last hit breakpoint using
1181 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum
1182 or disable only the specific breakpoint code location using
1183 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum.$_hit_locno
1184 These commands can be used inside the command list of a breakpoint to
1185 automatically disable the just encountered breakpoint (or the just
1186 encountered specific breakpoint code location).
1187 When a breakpoint has only one location, $_hit_locno is set to 1 so that
1188 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum.$_hit_locno
1190 (gdb) disable $_hit_bpnum
1191 are both disabling the breakpoint.
1195 maintenance set ignore-prologue-end-flag on|off
1196 maintenance show ignore-prologue-end-flag
1197 This setting, which is off by default, controls whether GDB ignores the
1198 PROLOGUE-END flag from the line-table when skipping prologue. This can be
1199 used to force GDB to use prologue analyzers if the line-table is constructed
1200 from erroneous debug information.
1202 set print nibbles [on|off]
1204 This controls whether the 'print/t' command will display binary values
1205 in groups of four bits, known as "nibbles". The default is 'off'.
1207 maintenance set libopcodes-styling on|off
1208 maintenance show libopcodes-styling
1209 These can be used to force off libopcodes based styling, the Python
1210 Pygments styling will then be used instead.
1212 set style disassembler comment
1213 show style disassembler comment
1214 set style disassembler immediate
1215 show style disassembler immediate
1216 set style disassembler mnemonic
1217 show style disassembler mnemonic
1218 set style disassembler register
1219 show style disassembler register
1220 set style disassembler address
1221 show style disassembler address
1222 set style disassembler symbol
1223 show style disassembler symbol
1224 For targets that support libopcodes based styling, these settings
1225 control how various aspects of the disassembler output are styled.
1226 The 'disassembler address' and 'disassembler symbol' styles are
1227 aliases for the 'address' and 'function' styles respectively.
1229 maintenance print frame-id [ LEVEL ]
1230 Print GDB's internal frame-id for the frame at LEVEL. If LEVEL is
1231 not given, then print the frame-id for the currently selected frame.
1233 set debug infcall on|off
1235 Print additional debug messages about inferior function calls.
1237 set debug solib on|off
1239 Print additional debug messages about shared library handling.
1241 set style tui-current-position [on|off]
1242 Whether to style the source and assembly code highlighted by the
1243 TUI's current position indicator. The default is off.
1245 set print characters LIMIT
1246 show print characters
1247 This new setting is like 'set print elements', but controls how many
1248 characters of a string are printed. This functionality used to be
1249 covered by 'set print elements', but it can be controlled separately
1250 now. LIMIT can be set to a numerical value to request that particular
1251 character count, to 'unlimited' to print all characters of a string,
1252 or to 'elements', which is also the default, to follow the setting of
1253 'set print elements' as it used to be.
1255 print -characters LIMIT
1256 This new option to the 'print' command has the same effect as a temporary
1257 use of 'set print characters'.
1261 document user-defined
1262 It is now possible to document user-defined aliases.
1263 When a user-defined alias is documented, the help and apropos commands
1264 use the provided documentation instead of the documentation of the
1266 Documenting a user-defined alias is particularly useful when the alias
1267 is a set of nested 'with' commands to avoid showing the help of
1268 the with command for an alias that will in fact launch the
1269 last command given in the nested commands.
1271 maintenance info line-table
1272 Add a PROLOGUE-END column to the output which indicates that an
1273 entry corresponds to an address where a breakpoint should be placed
1274 to be at the first instruction past a function's prologue.
1278 set debug aix-solib on|off
1279 show debug aix-solib
1280 set debug solib-frv on|off
1281 show debug solib-frv
1282 Removed in favor of "set/show debug solib".
1284 maintenance info program-spaces
1285 This command now includes a 'Core File' column which indicates the
1286 name of the core file associated with each program space.
1290 GNU/Linux/LoongArch (gdbserver) loongarch*-*-linux*
1292 GNU/Linux/CSKY (gdbserver) csky*-*linux*
1298 ** The async record stating the stopped reason 'breakpoint-hit' now
1299 contains an optional field locno giving the code location number
1300 when the breakpoint has multiple code locations.
1304 ** GDB will now reformat the doc string for gdb.Command and
1305 gdb.Parameter sub-classes to remove unnecessary leading
1306 whitespace from each line before using the string as the help
1309 ** New function gdb.format_address(ADDRESS, PROGSPACE, ARCHITECTURE),
1310 that formats ADDRESS as 'address <symbol+offset>', where symbol is
1311 looked up in PROGSPACE, and ARCHITECTURE is used to format address.
1312 This is the same format that GDB uses when printing address, symbol,
1313 and offset information from the disassembler.
1315 ** New function gdb.current_language that returns the name of the
1316 current language. Unlike gdb.parameter('language'), this will
1317 never return 'auto'.
1319 ** New method gdb.Frame.language that returns the name of the
1322 ** New Python API for wrapping GDB's disassembler:
1324 - gdb.disassembler.register_disassembler(DISASSEMBLER, ARCH).
1325 DISASSEMBLER is a sub-class of gdb.disassembler.Disassembler.
1326 ARCH is either None or a string containing a bfd architecture
1327 name. DISASSEMBLER is registered as a disassembler for
1328 architecture ARCH, or for all architectures if ARCH is None.
1329 The previous disassembler registered for ARCH is returned, this
1330 can be None if no previous disassembler was registered.
1332 - gdb.disassembler.Disassembler is the class from which all
1333 disassemblers should inherit. Its constructor takes a string,
1334 a name for the disassembler, which is currently only used in
1335 some debug output. Sub-classes should override the __call__
1336 method to perform disassembly, invoking __call__ on this base
1337 class will raise an exception.
1339 - gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo is the class used to describe
1340 a single disassembly request from GDB. An instance of this
1341 class is passed to the __call__ method of
1342 gdb.disassembler.Disassembler and has the following read-only
1343 attributes: 'address', and 'architecture', as well as the
1344 following method: 'read_memory'.
1346 - gdb.disassembler.builtin_disassemble(INFO, MEMORY_SOURCE),
1347 calls GDB's builtin disassembler on INFO, which is a
1348 gdb.disassembler.DisassembleInfo object. MEMORY_SOURCE is
1349 optional, its default value is None. If MEMORY_SOURCE is not
1350 None then it must be an object that has a 'read_memory' method.
1352 - gdb.disassembler.DisassemblerResult is a class that can be used
1353 to wrap the result of a call to a Disassembler. It has
1354 read-only attributes 'length' and 'string'.
1356 ** gdb.Objfile now has an attribute named "is_file". This is True
1357 if the objfile comes from a file, and False otherwise.
1359 ** New function gdb.print_options that returns a dictionary of the
1360 prevailing print options, in the form accepted by
1361 gdb.Value.format_string.
1363 ** gdb.Value.format_string now uses the format provided by 'print',
1364 if it is called during a 'print' or other similar operation.
1366 ** gdb.Value.format_string now accepts the 'summary' keyword. This
1367 can be used to request a shorter representation of a value, the
1368 way that 'set print frame-arguments scalars' does.
1370 ** New Python type gdb.BreakpointLocation.
1371 The new attribute 'locations' of gdb.Breakpoint returns a list of
1372 gdb.BreakpointLocation objects specifying the locations where the
1373 breakpoint is inserted into the debuggee.
1375 ** The gdb.register_window_type method now restricts the set of
1376 acceptable window names. The first character of a window's name
1377 must start with a character in the set [a-zA-Z], every subsequent
1378 character of a window's name must be in the set [-_.a-zA-Z0-9].
1380 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1382 ** GDBserver is now supported on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
1384 ** GDBserver is now supported on CSKY GNU/Linux.
1386 * LoongArch floating-point support
1388 GDB now supports floating-point on LoongArch GNU/Linux.
1390 * AMD GPU ROCm debugging support
1392 GDB now supports debugging programs offloaded to AMD GPUs using the ROCm
1395 *** Changes in GDB 12
1397 * DBX mode is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 13
1399 * GDB 12 is the last release of GDB that will support building against
1400 Python 2. From GDB 13, it will only be possible to build GDB itself
1401 with Python 3 support.
1403 * The disable-randomization setting now works on Windows.
1405 * Improved C++ template support
1407 GDB now treats functions/types involving C++ templates like it does function
1408 overloads. Users may omit parameter lists to set breakpoints on families of
1409 template functions, including types/functions composed of multiple template types:
1411 (gdb) break template_func(template_1, int)
1413 The above will set breakpoints at every function `template_func' where
1414 the first function parameter is any template type named `template_1' and
1415 the second function parameter is `int'.
1417 TAB completion also gains similar improvements.
1419 * The FreeBSD native target now supports async mode.
1425 Enable or disable multithreaded symbol loading. This is enabled
1426 by default, but passing --disable-threading or --enable-threading=no
1427 to configure will disable it.
1429 Disabling this can cause a performance penalty when there are a lot of
1430 symbols to load, but is useful for debugging purposes.
1434 maint set backtrace-on-fatal-signal on|off
1435 maint show backtrace-on-fatal-signal
1436 This setting is 'on' by default. When 'on' GDB will print a limited
1437 backtrace to stderr in the situation where GDB terminates with a
1438 fatal signal. This only supported on some platforms where the
1439 backtrace and backtrace_symbols_fd functions are available.
1441 set source open on|off
1443 This setting, which is on by default, controls whether GDB will try
1444 to open source code files. Switching this off will stop GDB trying
1445 to open and read source code files, which can be useful if the files
1446 are located over a slow network connection.
1450 These are now deprecated aliases for "set max-value-size" and
1451 "show max-value-size".
1453 task apply [all | TASK-IDS...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
1454 Like "thread apply", but applies COMMAND to Ada tasks.
1457 Watchpoints can now be restricted to a specific Ada task.
1459 maint set internal-error backtrace on|off
1460 maint show internal-error backtrace
1461 maint set internal-warning backtrace on|off
1462 maint show internal-warning backtrace
1463 GDB can now print a backtrace of itself when it encounters either an
1464 internal-error, or an internal-warning. This is on by default for
1465 internal-error and off by default for internal-warning.
1468 Deprecated and replaced by "set logging enabled on|off".
1470 set logging enabled on|off
1471 show logging enabled
1472 These commands set or show whether logging is enabled or disabled.
1475 You can now exit GDB by using the new command "exit", in addition to
1476 the existing "quit" command.
1478 set debug threads on|off
1480 Print additional debug messages about thread creation and deletion.
1482 set debug linux-nat on|off
1483 show debug linux-nat
1484 These new commands replaced the old 'set debug lin-lwp' and 'show
1485 debug lin-lwp' respectively. Turning this setting on prints debug
1486 messages relating to GDB's handling of native Linux inferiors.
1488 maint flush source-cache
1489 Flush the contents of the source code cache.
1491 maint set gnu-source-highlight enabled on|off
1492 maint show gnu-source-highlight enabled
1493 Whether GDB should use the GNU Source Highlight library for adding
1494 styling to source code. When off, the library will not be used, even
1495 when available. When GNU Source Highlight isn't used, or can't add
1496 styling to a particular source file, then the Python Pygments
1497 library will be used instead.
1499 set suppress-cli-notifications (on|off)
1500 show suppress-cli-notifications
1501 This controls whether printing the notifications is suppressed for CLI.
1502 CLI notifications occur when you change the selected context
1503 (i.e., the current inferior, thread and/or the frame), or when
1504 the program being debugged stops (e.g., because of hitting a
1505 breakpoint, completing source-stepping, an interrupt, etc.).
1507 set style disassembler enabled on|off
1508 show style disassembler enabled
1509 If GDB is compiled with Python support, and the Python Pygments
1510 package is available, then, when this setting is on, disassembler
1511 output will have styling applied.
1513 set ada source-charset
1514 show ada source-charset
1515 Set the character set encoding that is assumed for Ada symbols. Valid
1516 values for this follow the values that can be passed to the GNAT
1517 compiler via the '-gnati' option. The default is ISO-8859-1.
1523 These are the new names for the old 'layout', 'focus', 'refresh',
1524 and 'winheight' tui commands respectively. The old names still
1525 exist as aliases to these new commands.
1529 The new command 'tui window width', and the alias 'winwidth' allow
1530 the width of a tui window to be adjusted when windows are laid out
1533 set debug tui on|off
1535 Control the display of debug output about GDB's tui.
1540 Printing of floating-point values with base-modifying formats like
1541 /x has been changed to display the underlying bytes of the value in
1542 the desired base. This was GDB's documented behavior, but was never
1543 implemented correctly.
1546 This command can now print a reply, if the reply includes
1547 non-printable characters. Any non-printable characters are printed
1548 as escaped hex, e.g. \x?? where '??' is replaces with the value of
1549 the non-printable character.
1552 The clone-inferior command now ensures that the TTY, CMD and ARGS
1553 settings are copied from the original inferior to the new one.
1554 All modifications to the environment variables done using the 'set
1555 environment' or 'unset environment' commands are also copied to the new
1558 set debug lin-lwp on|off
1560 These commands have been removed from GDB. The new command 'set
1561 debug linux-nat' and 'show debug linux-nat' should be used
1565 This command now includes information about the width of the tui
1566 windows in its output.
1572 These commands are now aliases for the 'tui layout', 'tui focus',
1573 'tui refresh', and 'tui window height' commands respectively.
1575 * GDB's Ada parser now supports an extension for specifying the exact
1576 byte contents of a floating-point literal. This can be useful for
1577 setting floating-point registers to a precise value without loss of
1578 precision. The syntax is an extension of the based literal syntax.
1579 Use, e.g., "16lf#0123abcd#" -- the number of "l"s controls the width
1580 of the floating-point type, and the "f" is the marker for floating
1585 ** The '-add-inferior' with no option flags now inherits the
1586 connection of the current inferior, this restores the behavior of
1587 GDB as it was prior to GDB 10.
1589 ** The '-add-inferior' command now accepts a '--no-connection'
1590 option, which causes the new inferior to start without a
1593 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 4 (-i=mi4).
1595 ** The "script" field in breakpoint output (which is syntactically
1596 incorrect in MI 3 and below) has changed in MI 4 to become a list.
1597 This affects the following commands and events:
1601 - =breakpoint-created
1602 - =breakpoint-modified
1604 The -fix-breakpoint-script-output command can be used to enable
1605 this behavior with previous MI versions.
1609 GNU/Linux/LoongArch loongarch*-*-linux*
1617 ** New function gdb.add_history(), which takes a gdb.Value object
1618 and adds the value it represents to GDB's history list. An
1619 integer, the index of the new item in the history list, is
1622 ** New function gdb.history_count(), which returns the number of
1623 values in GDB's value history.
1625 ** New gdb.events.gdb_exiting event. This event is called with a
1626 gdb.GdbExitingEvent object which has the read-only attribute
1627 'exit_code', which contains the value of the GDB exit code. This
1628 event is triggered once GDB decides it is going to exit, but
1629 before GDB starts to clean up its internal state.
1631 ** New function gdb.architecture_names(), which returns a list
1632 containing all of the possible Architecture.name() values. Each
1635 ** New function gdb.Architecture.integer_type(), which returns an
1636 integer type given a size and a signed-ness.
1638 ** New gdb.TargetConnection object type that represents a connection
1639 (as displayed by the 'info connections' command). A sub-class,
1640 gdb.RemoteTargetConnection, is used to represent 'remote' and
1641 'extended-remote' connections.
1643 ** The gdb.Inferior type now has a 'connection' property which is an
1644 instance of gdb.TargetConnection, the connection used by this
1645 inferior. This can be None if the inferior has no connection.
1647 ** New 'gdb.events.connection_removed' event registry, which emits a
1648 'gdb.ConnectionEvent' when a connection is removed from GDB.
1649 This event has a 'connection' property, a gdb.TargetConnection
1650 object for the connection being removed.
1652 ** New gdb.connections() function that returns a list of all
1653 currently active connections.
1655 ** New gdb.RemoteTargetConnection.send_packet(PACKET) method. This
1656 is equivalent to the existing 'maint packet' CLI command; it
1657 allows a user specified packet to be sent to the remote target.
1659 ** New function gdb.host_charset(), returns a string, which is the
1660 name of the current host charset.
1662 ** New gdb.set_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This sets the gdb parameter
1665 ** New gdb.with_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This returns a context
1666 manager that temporarily sets the gdb parameter NAME to VALUE,
1667 then resets it when the context is exited.
1669 ** The gdb.Value.format_string method now takes a 'styling'
1670 argument, which is a boolean. When true, the returned string can
1671 include escape sequences to apply styling. The styling will only
1672 be present if styling is otherwise turned on in GDB (see 'help
1673 set styling'). When false, which is the default if the argument
1674 is not given, then no styling is applied to the returned string.
1676 ** New read-only attribute gdb.InferiorThread.details, which is
1677 either a string, containing additional, target specific thread
1678 state information, or None, if there is no such additional
1681 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_scalar, which is True for
1682 scalar types, and False for all other types.
1684 ** New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_signed. This attribute
1685 should only be read when Type.is_scalar is True, and will be True
1686 for signed types, and False for all other types. Attempting to
1687 read this attribute for non-scalar types will raise a ValueError.
1689 ** It is now possible to add GDB/MI commands implemented in Python.
1691 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1693 ** GDBserver is now supported on OpenRISC GNU/Linux.
1695 * New native configurations
1697 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
1699 *** Changes in GDB 11
1701 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
1704 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
1705 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
1706 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
1710 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
1711 a memory tag violation.
1713 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
1714 particular memory range.
1716 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
1717 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
1719 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
1724 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
1726 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
1727 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
1728 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
1729 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
1732 ** '-break-insert --force-condition' and '-dprintf-insert --force-condition'
1734 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
1735 '--force-condition' flag to forcibly define a condition even when
1736 the condition is invalid at all locations of the breakpoint. This
1737 is equivalent to the '-force-condition' flag of the CLI's "break"
1740 ** '-break-condition --force'
1742 The MI -break-condition command now supports a '--force' flag to
1743 forcibly define a condition even when the condition is invalid at
1744 all locations of the selected breakpoint. This is equivalent to
1745 the '-force' flag of the CLI's "cond" command.
1747 ** '-file-list-exec-source-files [--group-by-objfile]
1748 [--basename | --dirname]
1751 The existing -file-list-exec-source-files command now takes an
1752 optional REGEXP which is used to filter the source files that are
1753 included in the results.
1755 By default REGEXP is matched against the full filename of the
1756 source file. When one of --basename or --dirname is given then
1757 REGEXP is only matched against the specified part of the full
1760 When the optional --group-by-objfile flag is used the output
1761 format is changed, the results are now a list of object files
1762 (executable and libraries) with the source files that are
1763 associated with each object file.
1765 The results from -file-list-exec-source-files now include a
1766 'debug-fully-read' field which takes the value 'true' or 'false'.
1767 A 'true' value indicates the source file is from a compilation
1768 unit that has had its debug information fully read in by GDB, a
1769 value of 'false' indicates GDB has only performed a partial scan
1770 of the debug information so far.
1772 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
1774 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
1775 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
1776 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
1777 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
1778 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
1780 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
1781 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
1782 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
1785 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
1786 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
1787 name following a GNAT-specific format).
1789 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
1790 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
1791 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
1792 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
1793 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
1794 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
1796 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
1797 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
1798 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
1799 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
1801 * For RISC-V targets, the target feature "org.gnu.gdb.riscv.vector" is
1802 now understood by GDB, and can be used to describe the vector
1803 registers of a target. The precise requirements of this register
1804 feature are documented in the GDB manual.
1806 * For ARM targets, the "org.gnu.gdb.arm.m-profile-mve" feature is now
1807 supported by GDB and describes a new VPR register from the ARM MVE
1808 (Helium) extension. See the GDB manual for more information.
1812 ** TUI windows now support mouse actions. The mouse wheel scrolls
1813 the appropriate window.
1815 ** Key combinations that do not have a specific action on the
1816 focused window are passed to GDB. For example, you now can use
1817 Ctrl-Left/Ctrl-Right to move between words in the command window
1818 regardless of which window is in focus. Previously you would
1819 need to focus on the command window for such key combinations to
1824 set debug event-loop
1825 show debug event-loop
1826 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
1828 set print memory-tag-violations
1829 show print memory-tag-violations
1830 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
1831 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
1832 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
1834 maintenance flush symbol-cache
1835 maintenance flush register-cache
1836 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
1837 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
1839 maintenance flush dcache
1840 A new command to flush the dcache.
1842 maintenance info target-sections
1843 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
1845 maintenance info jit
1846 Print the JIT code objects in the inferior known to GDB.
1848 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
1849 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
1850 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
1851 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
1852 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
1853 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
1854 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
1855 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
1856 memory-tag check POINTER
1857 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
1859 set startup-quietly on|off
1860 show startup-quietly
1861 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
1862 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
1863 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
1866 set print type hex on|off
1868 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
1869 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
1871 set python ignore-environment on|off
1872 show python ignore-environment
1873 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to ignore any
1874 environment variables that would otherwise affect how Python
1875 behaves. This command needs to be added to an early initialization
1876 file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to affect GDB.
1878 set python dont-write-bytecode auto|on|off
1879 show python dont-write-bytecode
1880 When 'on', this causes GDB's builtin Python to not write any
1881 byte-code (.pyc files) to disk. This command needs to be added to
1882 an early initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in
1883 order to affect GDB. When 'off' byte-code will always be written.
1884 When set to 'auto' (the default) Python will check the
1885 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.
1889 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
1890 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
1891 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
1892 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
1893 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
1894 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
1895 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
1896 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
1897 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
1898 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
1899 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
1900 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
1903 condition [-force] N COND
1904 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
1905 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
1906 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
1907 current locations of breakpoint N.
1910 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
1911 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
1912 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
1913 symbol-cache' respectively.
1915 set style version foreground COLOR
1916 set style version background COLOR
1917 set style version intensity VALUE
1918 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
1921 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
1922 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
1923 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
1924 the current inferior.
1926 maintenance info sections
1927 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
1928 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
1929 even when -all-objects is passed.
1931 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
1932 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
1933 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
1934 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
1935 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
1939 The info sources command output has been restructured. The results
1940 are now based around a list of objfiles (executable and libraries),
1941 and for each objfile the source files that are part of that objfile
1944 * Removed targets and native configurations
1946 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1948 * New remote packets
1951 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
1953 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
1958 ** Improved support for rvalue reference values:
1959 TYPE_CODE_RVALUE_REF is now exported as part of the API and the
1960 value-referenced-value procedure now handles rvalue reference
1963 ** New procedures for obtaining value variants:
1964 value-reference-value, value-rvalue-reference-value and
1967 ** Temporary breakpoints can now be created with make-breakpoint and
1968 tested for using breakpoint-temporary?.
1972 ** Inferior objects now contain a read-only 'connection_num' attribute that
1973 gives the connection number as seen in 'info connections' and
1976 ** New method gdb.Frame.level() which returns the stack level of the
1979 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.level() which returns the stack level
1980 of the frame object.
1982 ** When hitting a catchpoint, the Python API will now emit a
1983 gdb.BreakpointEvent rather than a gdb.StopEvent. The
1984 gdb.Breakpoint attached to the event will have type BP_CATCHPOINT.
1986 ** Python TUI windows can now receive mouse click events. If the
1987 Window object implements the click method, it is called for each
1988 mouse click event in this window.
1990 *** Changes in GDB 10
1992 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
1993 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
1994 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
1997 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
1998 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
1999 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
2000 and finally the description of the command.
2002 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
2003 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
2005 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
2006 debugging information as well as source code.
2008 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
2009 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
2012 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
2013 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
2015 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
2017 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
2019 * Multi-target debugging support
2021 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
2022 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
2023 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
2024 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
2025 debugging a core dump, etc.
2027 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
2028 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
2029 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
2030 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
2031 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
2032 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
2034 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2036 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
2038 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
2040 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
2042 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2051 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
2053 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
2054 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
2056 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
2057 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
2058 performance for programs with many symbols.
2060 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
2061 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
2063 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
2065 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
2066 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
2067 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
2068 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
2071 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
2076 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
2077 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
2078 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
2079 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
2080 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
2081 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
2082 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
2083 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
2084 attempt to detect a mismatch.
2086 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
2087 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
2090 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
2091 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
2092 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
2093 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
2096 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
2097 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
2098 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
2100 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
2101 show debug fortran-array-slicing
2102 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
2104 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
2105 show fortran repack-array-slices
2106 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
2107 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
2108 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
2109 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
2110 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
2111 original parent value.
2115 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
2116 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
2117 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
2118 provided explicitly by the user.
2119 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
2120 an alias 'bt_ALL' as
2121 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
2122 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
2123 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
2124 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
2125 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
2126 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
2130 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
2131 BPF bpf-unknown-none
2136 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
2139 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
2140 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
2141 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
2144 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
2145 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
2147 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
2148 architecture of the pending frame.
2150 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
2151 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
2152 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
2153 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
2155 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
2156 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
2157 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
2158 discover the available register groups.
2162 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
2164 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
2165 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
2166 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
2167 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
2168 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
2170 *** Changes in GDB 9
2172 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
2174 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
2175 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
2176 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
2177 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
2178 such as in system-wide init files.
2180 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
2181 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
2182 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
2183 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
2184 current GDB settings.
2186 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
2187 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
2188 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
2189 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
2191 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
2192 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
2195 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
2196 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
2198 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
2199 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
2200 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
2202 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
2203 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
2206 * Command names can now use the . character.
2208 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
2210 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
2213 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
2215 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
2216 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
2218 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
2219 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
2220 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
2222 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
2224 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
2225 not visible in the current scope.
2227 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
2228 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
2229 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
2230 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
2231 compiled with support for that language.
2233 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
2234 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
2235 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
2239 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
2240 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
2241 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
2242 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
2243 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
2245 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
2246 type was defined in.
2248 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
2249 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
2250 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
2253 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
2254 symbols with static linkage.
2256 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
2257 all static symbols with static linkage.
2259 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
2260 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
2262 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
2263 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
2267 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
2268 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
2269 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
2270 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
2271 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
2272 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
2273 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
2275 define-prefix COMMAND
2276 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
2278 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
2279 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
2280 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
2281 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
2282 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
2283 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
2284 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
2285 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
2286 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
2287 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
2288 of array elements to print.
2290 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
2291 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
2293 set may-call-functions [on|off]
2294 show may-call-functions
2295 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
2296 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
2297 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
2298 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
2299 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
2300 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
2303 set print finish [on|off]
2305 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
2306 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
2307 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
2311 show print max-depth
2312 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
2313 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
2314 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
2315 the old behavior back.
2317 set print raw-values [on|off]
2318 show print raw-values
2319 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
2320 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
2321 of commands. The default is 'off'.
2323 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
2324 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
2325 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
2327 set style title foreground COLOR
2328 set style title background COLOR
2329 set style title intensity VALUE
2330 Control the styling of titles.
2332 set style highlight foreground COLOR
2333 set style highlight background COLOR
2334 set style highlight intensity VALUE
2335 Control the styling of highlightings.
2337 maint set worker-threads
2338 maint show worker-threads
2339 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
2340 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
2341 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
2342 the names of linker symbols.
2344 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
2345 set style tui-border background COLOR
2346 Control the styling of TUI borders.
2348 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
2349 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
2350 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
2352 maint set test-settings KIND
2353 maint show test-settings KIND
2354 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
2357 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
2358 maint show tui-resize-message
2359 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
2360 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
2363 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
2364 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
2365 show print frame-info
2366 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
2367 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behavior of 'backtrace',
2368 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
2369 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
2371 set tui compact-source
2372 show tui compact-source
2374 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
2375 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
2376 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
2377 line numbers from the source.
2379 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
2380 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
2383 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
2384 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
2385 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
2386 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
2387 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
2388 matches against the function name.
2390 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
2391 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
2392 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
2393 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
2394 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
2395 against the variable name.
2397 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
2398 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
2399 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
2401 The default is 512 bytes.
2404 Lists the target connections currently in use.
2409 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
2410 readability of its output by styling the classes and
2414 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
2415 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
2416 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
2417 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
2418 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
2422 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
2423 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
2424 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
2425 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
2427 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
2428 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
2429 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
2430 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
2434 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
2435 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
2436 the user visualize the different styles.
2438 set print frame-arguments
2439 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
2440 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
2442 set print raw-frame-arguments
2443 show print raw-frame-arguments
2445 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
2446 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
2447 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
2450 add-inferior [-no-connection]
2451 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
2452 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
2453 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
2454 current inferior. See also "info connections".
2457 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
2458 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
2459 "info connections" above.
2461 maint test-options require-delimiter
2462 maint test-options unknown-is-error
2463 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
2464 maint show test-options-completion-result
2465 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
2468 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
2469 These commands are now case-sensitive.
2471 * New command options, command completion
2473 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
2474 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
2475 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
2476 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
2477 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
2478 number of commands got support for new command options in this
2481 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
2482 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
2483 set by "set print" subcommands:
2487 -array-indexes [on|off]
2488 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
2492 -raw-values [on|off]
2493 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
2494 -static-members [on|off]
2499 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
2500 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
2501 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
2502 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
2504 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
2505 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
2506 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
2508 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
2509 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
2510 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
2511 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
2512 |location-and-address|short-location
2514 -past-entry [on|off]
2516 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
2517 exposed as command options too:
2523 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
2524 support the following options:
2527 -past-entry [on|off]
2529 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
2530 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
2532 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
2533 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
2534 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
2537 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
2539 The above is equivalent to:
2541 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
2543 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
2544 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
2545 variables" and "info functions".
2547 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
2548 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
2549 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
2552 * Completion improvements
2554 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
2555 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
2558 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
2559 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
2562 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
2563 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
2564 completes on filenames.
2566 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
2567 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
2569 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
2571 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
2572 elements unlimited".
2577 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2578 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
2579 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
2581 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
2582 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
2583 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
2585 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
2586 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
2587 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
2589 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
2592 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
2593 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
2594 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
2598 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
2600 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
2601 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
2602 the following commands and events:
2606 - =breakpoint-created
2607 - =breakpoint-modified
2609 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
2610 this behavior with previous MI versions.
2612 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
2613 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
2614 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
2619 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
2620 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
2621 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
2622 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
2624 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
2626 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
2627 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
2629 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
2631 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
2632 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
2634 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
2635 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
2636 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
2638 * Removed targets and native configurations
2640 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
2641 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
2642 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
2648 * Removed targets and native configurations
2650 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
2651 sparc*-*-solaris2.10
2653 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
2655 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
2656 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
2659 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
2660 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
2661 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
2664 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
2667 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
2668 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
2669 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
2671 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
2672 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
2674 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
2675 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
2676 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
2677 in the GDB user manual.
2679 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
2682 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
2684 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
2685 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
2686 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
2687 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
2688 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
2689 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
2690 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
2691 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
2692 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
2693 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
2694 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
2695 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
2697 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
2698 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
2699 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
2702 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
2707 set debug compile-cplus-types
2708 show debug compile-cplus-types
2709 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
2710 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
2711 for other languages.
2715 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
2718 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
2719 Apply a command to some frames.
2720 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
2721 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
2724 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
2725 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
2728 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
2729 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
2732 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
2734 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
2736 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
2737 maint show dwarf unwinders
2738 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
2741 Display a list of open files for a process.
2745 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
2746 These commands all now take a frame specification which
2747 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
2748 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
2749 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
2750 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
2751 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
2753 target remote FILENAME
2754 target extended-remote FILENAME
2755 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
2756 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
2758 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2759 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2760 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2761 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
2762 These commands can now print only the searched entities
2763 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
2764 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
2765 printing headers or information messages.
2771 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
2772 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
2773 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
2776 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
2777 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
2778 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
2779 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
2781 set tui tab-width NCHARS
2782 show tui tab-width NCHARS
2783 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
2785 set style enabled [on|off]
2787 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
2788 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
2790 set style sources [on|off]
2792 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
2793 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
2794 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
2796 set style filename foreground COLOR
2797 set style filename background COLOR
2798 set style filename intensity VALUE
2799 Control the styling of file names.
2801 set style function foreground COLOR
2802 set style function background COLOR
2803 set style function intensity VALUE
2804 Control the styling of function names.
2806 set style variable foreground COLOR
2807 set style variable background COLOR
2808 set style variable intensity VALUE
2809 Control the styling of variable names.
2811 set style address foreground COLOR
2812 set style address background COLOR
2813 set style address intensity VALUE
2814 Control the styling of addresses.
2818 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
2819 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
2820 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
2821 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
2822 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
2824 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
2825 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
2827 * New native configurations
2829 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
2830 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
2834 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
2835 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
2836 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
2837 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
2839 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
2843 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
2848 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
2850 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
2851 space associated to that inferior.
2853 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
2854 of objfiles associated to that program space.
2856 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
2857 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
2860 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
2861 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
2862 correct and did not work properly.
2864 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
2865 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
2871 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
2872 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
2873 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
2874 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
2875 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
2877 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
2879 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
2880 for the MIPS target.
2882 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
2883 offset to all sections.
2885 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
2886 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
2887 address of individual sections using '-s'.
2889 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
2890 (address of the text section).
2892 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
2893 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
2894 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
2895 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
2898 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
2899 for the rest of the current command.
2901 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
2902 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
2904 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
2905 files created on FreeBSD systems.
2907 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
2910 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
2911 the vector length while the process is running.
2917 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
2919 set|show varsize-limit
2920 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
2921 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
2922 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
2924 set|show record btrace cpu
2925 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
2926 branch trace decode.
2928 maint check libthread-db
2929 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
2932 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
2933 maint show check-libthread-db
2934 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
2935 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
2936 perform such checks.
2940 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
2942 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
2943 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
2945 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
2947 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
2948 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
2949 of convenience variables.
2951 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
2952 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
2953 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
2957 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
2959 * Removed targets and native configurations
2961 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
2962 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
2963 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
2964 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
2966 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
2968 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
2969 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
2970 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
2971 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
2972 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
2973 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
2978 --enable-codesign=CERT
2979 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
2980 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
2981 gdb to work properly.
2983 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
2984 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
2986 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
2988 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
2989 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
2990 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
2992 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
2993 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
2995 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
2996 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
2997 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
2998 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
2999 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
3001 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
3002 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
3003 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
3004 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
3006 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
3007 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
3009 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
3010 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
3011 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
3013 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
3014 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
3015 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
3017 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
3018 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
3019 environment" command.
3021 * Completion improvements
3023 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
3024 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
3025 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
3026 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
3029 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
3030 (gdb) b function(int)
3032 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
3033 C++ anonymous namespaces:
3036 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
3037 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
3038 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
3040 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
3041 completion support, that better understands what you're
3042 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
3043 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
3044 setting a breakpoint.
3046 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
3048 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
3050 * New command line options (gcore)
3053 Dump all memory mappings.
3055 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
3057 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
3058 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
3059 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
3061 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
3066 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
3069 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
3070 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
3071 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
3072 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
3073 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
3074 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
3075 a breakpoint from Python.
3077 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
3079 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
3080 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
3081 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
3083 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
3085 function[abi:cxx11](int)
3088 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
3091 (gdb) b function(int)
3093 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
3095 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
3097 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
3101 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
3102 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
3103 description of these.
3105 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
3106 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
3107 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
3109 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
3110 manual for a further description of this feature.
3113 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3115 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
3116 specified initial working directory.
3118 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
3119 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
3121 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
3122 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
3124 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
3125 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
3127 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
3128 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
3129 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
3130 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
3131 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
3133 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
3134 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
3135 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
3137 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
3138 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
3139 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
3140 in the *stopped notification.
3142 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
3143 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
3145 * New remote packets
3147 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
3148 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
3149 the inferior when starting it.
3152 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
3153 before starting the remote inferior.
3156 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
3157 user-set environment variables should be unset).
3160 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
3163 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
3166 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
3167 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
3169 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
3170 filter the tests to be run.
3172 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
3173 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
3178 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
3180 set|show compile-gcc
3181 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
3182 with the 'compile' commands.
3184 set debug separate-debug-file
3185 show debug separate-debug-file
3186 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
3188 set dump-excluded-mappings
3189 show dump-excluded-mappings
3190 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
3191 dumped when generating a core file.
3193 maint info selftests
3194 List the registered selftests.
3197 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
3200 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
3202 set|show print type nested-type-limit
3203 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
3204 type printer will show.
3206 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
3209 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
3211 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
3214 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
3215 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
3216 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
3217 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
3219 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
3220 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
3221 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
3222 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
3223 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
3224 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
3226 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
3227 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
3228 unless you tell it the variable's type:
3231 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
3235 * New native configurations
3237 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
3238 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
3242 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
3243 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
3244 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
3246 * Removed targets and native configurations
3248 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
3250 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
3252 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
3253 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
3254 available in future Intel CPUs.
3256 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
3260 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
3261 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
3263 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
3266 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
3268 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
3270 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
3271 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
3274 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
3276 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
3277 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
3279 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
3281 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
3282 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
3283 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
3284 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
3287 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
3289 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
3290 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
3293 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
3295 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
3296 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
3298 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
3300 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
3305 eval "print $arg%d", $i
3310 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
3312 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
3313 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
3315 * New native configurations
3317 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
3321 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
3322 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
3324 * Removed targets and native configurations
3326 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3327 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
3332 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
3334 maint print arc arc-instruction address
3335 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
3339 set disassembler-options
3340 show disassembler-options
3341 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
3342 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
3343 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
3344 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
3345 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
3350 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
3351 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
3353 -file-list-shared-libraries
3354 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
3355 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
3358 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
3359 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
3361 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
3363 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
3365 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
3366 default. One must now explicitly configure with
3367 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
3368 option will be removed in a future release.
3370 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
3373 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
3374 memory backward from the given address. For example:
3377 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
3378 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
3379 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
3380 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
3381 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
3382 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
3383 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
3384 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
3385 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
3387 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
3388 arrays of dynamic types.
3390 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
3391 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
3392 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
3393 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
3394 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
3395 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
3397 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
3400 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
3401 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
3402 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
3404 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
3406 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
3407 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
3408 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
3409 signal received and code location.
3413 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
3414 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
3415 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
3416 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
3418 * Rust language support.
3419 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
3420 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
3423 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
3425 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
3426 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
3427 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
3428 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
3429 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
3430 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
3431 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
3432 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
3433 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
3434 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
3437 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
3439 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
3440 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
3445 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
3446 skip -function function
3447 skip -rfunction regular-expression
3448 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
3449 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
3450 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
3452 maint info line-table REGEXP
3453 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
3456 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
3459 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
3460 using the TTY file for input/output.
3464 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
3465 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
3466 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
3467 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
3468 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
3470 signal-event EVENTID
3471 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
3472 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
3473 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
3474 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
3475 signalling an event.
3477 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
3478 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
3479 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
3481 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
3484 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
3485 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
3486 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
3487 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
3488 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
3489 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
3491 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
3492 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
3493 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
3494 bytecode into native code.
3496 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
3497 recording. For example:
3499 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
3501 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
3503 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
3507 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
3509 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
3511 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
3513 * Per-inferior thread numbers
3515 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
3516 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
3517 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
3521 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
3522 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
3523 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
3524 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
3526 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
3527 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
3528 are no longer unique between inferiors.
3530 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
3531 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
3532 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
3534 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
3537 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
3538 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
3541 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
3544 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
3545 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
3546 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
3547 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
3550 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
3553 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
3556 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
3559 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
3560 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
3563 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
3564 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
3566 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
3568 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
3570 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
3571 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
3573 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
3574 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
3577 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3578 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
3581 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
3582 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
3585 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
3587 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
3588 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
3589 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
3591 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
3592 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
3596 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
3597 maint show target-non-stop
3598 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
3599 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
3600 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
3602 maint set bfd-sharing
3603 maint show bfd-sharing
3604 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
3607 show debug bfd-cache
3608 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
3612 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
3614 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
3615 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
3616 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
3618 set remote thread-events
3619 show remote thread-events
3620 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
3622 set ada print-signatures on|off
3623 show ada print-signatures"
3624 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
3625 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
3629 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
3630 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
3631 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
3633 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
3634 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
3635 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
3636 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
3637 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
3638 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
3640 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
3641 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
3643 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
3644 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
3646 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
3648 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
3649 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
3650 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
3651 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
3652 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
3653 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
3655 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
3656 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
3659 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
3661 * New remote packets
3664 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
3666 exec-events feature in qSupported
3667 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
3668 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
3669 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
3670 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
3673 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
3676 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
3677 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
3679 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
3680 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
3683 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
3684 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
3685 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
3686 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
3687 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
3688 stop for that same thread.
3691 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
3692 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
3693 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
3696 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
3697 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
3699 syscall_entry stop reason
3700 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
3702 syscall_return stop reason
3703 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
3705 * Extended-remote exec events
3707 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
3708 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
3709 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
3711 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
3712 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
3713 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
3715 * Thread names in remote protocol
3717 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
3720 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
3722 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
3723 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
3724 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
3725 fork and exec catchpoints.
3727 * Remote syscall events
3729 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
3730 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
3732 set remote catch-syscall-packet
3733 show remote catch-syscall-packet
3734 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
3738 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
3739 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
3744 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
3745 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
3746 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
3747 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
3748 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
3749 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
3751 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
3753 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
3754 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
3755 including advance SIMD instructions.
3757 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
3759 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
3760 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
3761 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
3762 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
3763 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
3764 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
3765 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
3767 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
3769 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
3771 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
3772 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
3775 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
3776 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
3777 and may include things like its command line arguments.
3779 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
3780 is now available on all platforms.
3782 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
3783 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
3784 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
3785 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
3786 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
3787 backward compatibility.
3789 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
3790 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
3791 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
3792 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
3794 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
3795 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
3796 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
3797 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
3800 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
3802 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
3804 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
3805 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
3806 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
3807 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
3808 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
3809 See "New remote packets" below.
3811 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
3812 available register groups, including target specific groups.
3814 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
3815 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
3816 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
3817 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
3822 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
3826 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
3827 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
3828 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
3829 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
3830 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
3831 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
3832 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
3833 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
3834 "const" version of the value respectively.
3838 maint print symbol-cache
3839 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
3841 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
3842 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
3844 maint flush-symbol-cache
3845 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
3849 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
3852 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
3856 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
3859 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
3860 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
3864 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
3867 Print information about branch tracing internals.
3869 maint btrace packet-history
3870 Print the raw branch tracing data.
3872 maint btrace clear-packet-history
3873 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
3876 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
3877 anew by the next "record" command.
3882 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
3883 show debug dwarf-die
3884 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
3886 set debug dwarf-read
3887 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
3888 show debug dwarf-read
3889 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
3891 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
3892 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
3893 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
3894 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
3896 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
3897 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
3898 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
3899 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
3901 set debug dwarf-line
3902 show debug dwarf-line
3903 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
3906 show max-completions
3907 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
3908 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
3909 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
3910 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
3912 set history remove-duplicates
3913 show history remove-duplicates
3914 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
3916 maint set symbol-cache-size
3917 maint show symbol-cache-size
3918 Control the size of the symbol cache.
3920 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
3921 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
3923 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
3924 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
3926 set debug linux-namespaces
3927 show debug linux-namespaces
3928 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
3930 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
3931 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
3932 Intel Processor Trace format.
3933 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
3934 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
3936 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
3937 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
3940 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
3941 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
3943 * Python/Guile scripting
3945 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
3946 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
3948 * New remote packets
3950 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
3951 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
3953 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
3954 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
3957 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
3958 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
3961 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
3962 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
3966 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
3967 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
3968 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
3972 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
3973 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
3976 Return information about files on the remote system.
3978 qXfer:exec-file:read
3979 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
3980 create a process running on the remote system.
3983 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
3984 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
3985 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
3986 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
3989 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
3992 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
3994 vforkdone stop reason
3995 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
3996 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
3998 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
3999 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
4000 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
4001 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
4002 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
4003 whether these features are enabled.
4005 * Extended-remote fork events
4007 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
4008 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
4009 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
4010 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
4012 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
4013 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
4014 the btrace record target.
4015 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
4017 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
4018 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
4020 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
4023 * Removed command line options
4025 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
4027 * Removed targets and native configurations
4029 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
4030 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
4032 * New configure options
4035 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
4036 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
4038 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
4039 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
4040 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
4041 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
4043 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
4047 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
4049 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
4051 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
4055 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
4056 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
4057 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
4058 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
4059 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
4060 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
4061 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
4062 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
4063 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
4064 selecting a new file to debug.
4065 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
4066 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
4068 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
4071 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
4072 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
4073 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
4074 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
4076 * New Python-based convenience functions:
4078 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
4079 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
4080 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
4081 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
4083 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
4084 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
4085 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
4086 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
4087 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
4088 interface with this new feature are:
4090 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
4091 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
4095 demangle [-l language] [--] name
4096 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
4097 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
4098 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
4099 as "maint demangler-warning".
4101 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
4102 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
4104 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
4105 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
4108 maint print user-registers
4109 List all currently available "user" registers.
4111 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
4112 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
4113 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
4115 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
4116 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
4117 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
4120 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
4121 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
4122 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
4123 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
4126 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
4127 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
4128 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
4129 switched threads meanwhile.
4131 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
4133 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
4134 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
4135 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
4136 is now the default mode.
4140 set debug symbol-lookup
4141 show debug symbol-lookup
4142 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
4146 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
4147 inferiors that have exited.
4151 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
4155 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4157 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
4158 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
4159 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
4160 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
4161 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
4163 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
4164 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
4165 its alias "share", instead.
4167 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
4169 * New command line options
4172 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
4174 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
4175 as specified in ISO C99.
4177 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
4178 with or without disassembly.
4182 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
4183 available is determined at configure time.
4184 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
4185 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
4187 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4191 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
4195 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
4197 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
4198 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
4200 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
4201 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
4205 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
4206 show print symbol-loading
4207 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
4208 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
4209 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
4210 becomes less useful.
4212 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
4213 show guile print-stack
4214 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
4216 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
4217 show auto-load guile-scripts
4218 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
4220 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
4221 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
4222 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
4223 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
4224 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
4225 usage of this option.
4227 set auto-connect-native-target
4229 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
4230 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
4231 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
4233 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
4234 show record btrace replay-memory-access
4235 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
4237 maint set target-async (on|off)
4238 maint show target-async
4239 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
4240 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
4241 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
4242 occurring only in synchronous mode.
4244 set mi-async (on|off)
4246 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
4247 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
4249 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
4250 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
4252 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
4253 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
4254 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
4255 "set target-async on" command.
4257 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4259 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
4260 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
4261 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
4262 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
4263 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
4265 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
4266 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
4267 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
4269 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
4270 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
4271 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
4272 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
4273 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
4274 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
4275 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
4277 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
4278 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
4280 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
4281 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
4282 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
4284 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
4285 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
4286 memory or registers.
4288 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
4290 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
4291 remote. It now works with all targets.
4293 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
4294 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
4295 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
4296 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
4297 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
4298 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
4299 as these commands previously either threw an error, or were
4300 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
4301 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
4304 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
4305 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
4306 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
4308 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
4310 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
4311 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
4312 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
4314 * New remote packets
4316 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
4317 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
4318 branch trace incrementally.
4322 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
4323 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
4325 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
4326 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
4327 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
4328 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
4329 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
4332 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
4334 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
4335 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
4336 its alias "share", instead.
4338 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
4339 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
4344 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
4345 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
4346 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
4347 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
4348 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
4349 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
4350 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
4351 commands and CLI execution commands.
4353 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
4355 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
4356 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
4357 recording has been added.
4359 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
4361 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
4362 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
4364 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
4365 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
4366 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
4367 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
4368 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
4369 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
4372 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
4374 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
4376 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
4377 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
4378 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
4379 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
4384 (gdb) info registers rax
4387 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
4388 "*value not available*".
4390 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
4395 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
4396 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
4397 ** Line tables representation has been added.
4398 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
4399 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
4400 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
4404 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
4405 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
4406 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
4408 * Removed native configurations
4410 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
4411 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
4413 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
4414 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
4415 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
4416 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
4417 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
4418 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
4419 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
4423 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
4424 maint check-psymtabs
4425 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
4427 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
4428 maint expand-symtabs
4429 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
4432 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
4434 maint set|show per-command
4435 maint set|show per-command space
4436 maint set|show per-command time
4437 maint set|show per-command symtab
4438 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
4440 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
4441 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
4442 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
4443 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
4444 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
4447 info exceptions REGEXP
4448 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
4449 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
4454 set debug symfile off|on
4456 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
4457 symbol tables within those files
4459 set print raw frame-arguments
4460 show print raw frame-arguments
4461 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
4462 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
4464 set remote trace-status-packet
4465 show remote trace-status-packet
4466 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
4470 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
4474 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
4476 set startup-with-shell
4477 show startup-with-shell
4478 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
4483 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
4484 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
4486 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
4487 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
4488 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
4489 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
4492 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
4493 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
4494 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
4496 * New command-line options
4498 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
4500 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
4501 buffer in Common Trace Format.
4503 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
4506 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
4508 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
4509 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
4511 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
4512 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
4514 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
4515 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
4516 due to an uncaught signal.
4520 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
4521 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
4522 command, which should contain "language-option".
4524 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
4525 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
4527 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
4528 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
4529 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
4530 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
4531 "undefined-command-error-code".
4533 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
4536 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
4538 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
4539 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
4542 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
4543 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
4545 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
4546 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
4547 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
4549 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
4550 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
4551 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
4552 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
4553 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
4554 "exec-run-start-option".
4556 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
4557 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
4559 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
4560 the new "info exceptions" command.
4562 * New system-wide configuration scripts
4563 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
4564 configuration scripts for the following systems:
4568 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
4569 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
4570 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
4573 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
4574 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
4576 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
4577 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
4578 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
4580 * New remote packets
4584 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
4585 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
4586 involvemement at each single-step.
4588 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
4589 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
4590 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
4591 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
4592 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
4593 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
4596 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
4598 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
4599 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
4601 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
4602 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
4603 trace state variables.
4605 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
4608 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
4609 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
4611 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
4613 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
4614 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
4615 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
4616 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4618 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
4620 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
4621 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
4622 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
4623 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
4625 set|show record full insn-number-max
4626 set|show record full stop-at-limit
4627 set|show record full memory-query
4629 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
4630 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
4631 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
4632 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
4633 This new recording method can be enabled using:
4637 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
4638 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
4640 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
4641 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
4642 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
4644 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
4645 instruction granularity
4647 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
4648 function granularity
4650 * New native configurations
4652 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
4653 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4654 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
4655 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
4659 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
4660 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
4661 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
4662 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
4663 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
4665 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
4666 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
4667 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
4668 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
4669 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
4670 --data-directory command-line option.
4672 * New command line options:
4674 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
4675 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
4677 * Removed command line options
4679 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
4682 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
4685 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
4689 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
4691 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
4693 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
4695 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
4697 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
4698 of architecture in the Python API.
4700 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
4701 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
4703 * New Python-based convenience functions:
4705 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
4706 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
4708 ** $_regex(str, regex)
4710 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
4713 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
4714 default for GCC since November 2000.
4716 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
4718 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
4719 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
4721 * New configure options
4723 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
4724 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
4725 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
4726 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
4727 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
4728 options allow the user to override that default.
4729 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
4730 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
4731 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
4733 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4736 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
4737 conditions to be attached.
4740 List the BFDs known to GDB.
4742 python-interactive [command]
4744 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
4745 and print the result of expressions.
4748 "py" is a new alias for "python".
4750 enable type-printer [name]...
4751 disable type-printer [name]...
4752 Enable or disable type printers.
4756 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
4757 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
4762 set print type methods (on|off)
4763 show print type methods
4764 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
4765 The default is to show them.
4767 set print type typedefs (on|off)
4768 show print type typedefs
4769 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
4770 The default is to show them.
4772 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
4773 show filename-display
4774 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
4775 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
4777 set trace-buffer-size
4778 show trace-buffer-size
4779 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
4781 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
4782 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
4783 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
4787 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
4790 set debug coff-pe-read
4791 show debug coff-pe-read
4792 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
4797 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
4800 set debug notification
4801 show debug notification
4802 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
4806 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
4807 "=cmd-param-changed".
4808 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
4809 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
4810 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
4811 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
4812 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
4813 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
4814 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
4815 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
4817 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
4818 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
4819 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
4820 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
4821 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
4822 library load/unload events.
4823 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
4824 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
4825 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
4826 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
4827 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
4828 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
4829 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
4830 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
4832 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
4833 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
4834 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
4835 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
4837 * New remote packets
4840 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
4841 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4844 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
4845 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
4849 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
4850 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4853 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
4854 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
4856 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
4858 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
4859 for more x32 ABI info.
4861 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
4863 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
4865 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
4866 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
4867 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
4868 "info os files" lists file descriptors
4869 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
4870 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
4871 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
4872 "info os msg" lists message queues
4873 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
4875 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
4876 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
4877 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
4878 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
4879 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
4880 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
4882 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
4883 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
4884 record/replay support.
4886 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
4890 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
4893 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
4895 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
4896 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
4898 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
4900 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
4901 the source at which the symbol was defined.
4903 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
4904 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
4905 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
4908 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
4909 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
4911 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
4912 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
4913 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
4915 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
4916 object associated with a PC value.
4918 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
4919 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
4921 * Go language support.
4922 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
4925 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
4926 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
4928 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
4929 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
4931 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
4932 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
4933 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
4934 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
4935 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
4938 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
4939 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
4940 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
4941 build/libcpp/expr.c.
4943 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
4944 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
4946 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
4947 since December 2007.
4949 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
4950 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
4951 command does. For instance:
4953 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
4955 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
4956 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
4957 created, using the "condition" command.
4959 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
4960 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
4962 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
4964 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
4965 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
4966 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
4967 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
4968 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
4969 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
4970 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
4971 files with older .gdb_index sections.
4973 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
4974 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
4975 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
4976 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
4977 the .gdb_index section.
4979 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
4981 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
4986 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
4988 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
4992 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
4993 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
4994 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
4996 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
4997 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
4999 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
5002 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
5003 C++ and Java objects.
5005 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
5006 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
5007 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
5008 configured with '--with-python'.
5010 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
5011 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
5012 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
5013 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
5014 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
5015 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
5016 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
5018 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
5019 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
5020 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
5021 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
5023 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
5024 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
5025 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
5026 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compile time.
5028 ** "set print symbol"
5030 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
5031 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
5032 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
5034 * Deprecated commands
5036 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
5037 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
5041 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
5042 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
5044 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
5045 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
5046 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
5047 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
5052 set mips compression
5053 show mips compression
5054 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
5055 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
5058 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
5060 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
5061 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
5062 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
5063 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
5065 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
5069 Disable auto-loading globally.
5072 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
5074 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
5075 show auto-load gdb-scripts
5076 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
5078 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
5079 show auto-load python-scripts
5080 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
5082 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
5083 show auto-load local-gdbinit
5084 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
5086 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
5087 show auto-load libthread-db
5088 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
5090 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
5091 show auto-load scripts-directory
5092 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
5093 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
5094 of the directories listed by this option.
5095 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
5097 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
5098 show auto-load safe-path
5099 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
5100 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
5102 set debug auto-load on|off
5103 show debug auto-load
5104 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
5106 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
5108 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
5109 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
5110 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
5111 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
5113 set dprintf-function <expr>
5114 show dprintf-function
5115 set dprintf-channel <expr>
5116 show dprintf-channel
5117 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
5118 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
5120 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
5121 show disconnected-dprintf
5122 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
5123 after GDB disconnects.
5125 * New configure options
5127 --with-auto-load-dir
5128 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
5129 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
5130 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
5131 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
5132 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
5134 --with-auto-load-safe-path
5135 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
5136 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
5138 --without-auto-load-safe-path
5139 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
5142 * New remote packets
5144 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
5146 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
5147 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
5148 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
5149 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
5153 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
5154 program without GDB involvement.
5156 * New command line options
5158 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
5159 before loading inferior.
5160 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
5161 execute it before loading inferior.
5163 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
5165 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
5166 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
5167 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
5168 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
5171 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
5172 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
5174 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
5175 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
5176 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
5177 target hardware watchpoint.
5179 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
5180 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
5181 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
5182 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
5186 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
5187 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
5190 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
5191 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
5192 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
5193 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
5194 now "message", which just prints the error message without
5197 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
5200 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
5201 modules library. This module provides functionality for
5202 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
5203 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
5204 corresponding value.
5206 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
5207 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
5208 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
5211 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
5212 static_block will return the global and static blocks
5213 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
5214 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
5216 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
5218 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
5221 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
5222 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
5223 available in the CLI.
5225 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
5226 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
5227 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
5228 "some_type.items()".
5230 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
5233 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
5234 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
5235 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
5236 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
5237 any anonymous fields.
5241 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
5244 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
5245 "=breakpoint-modified".
5247 ** New command -ada-task-info.
5249 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
5250 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
5251 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
5254 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
5255 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
5256 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
5257 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
5258 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
5260 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
5261 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
5263 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
5264 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
5265 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
5266 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
5267 use this option to specify where to find it.
5269 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
5270 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
5271 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
5272 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
5273 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
5274 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
5275 section in the user manual for more details.
5277 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
5278 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
5279 become available after that.
5281 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
5283 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
5284 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
5290 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
5291 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
5295 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
5296 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
5297 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
5299 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
5300 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
5301 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
5303 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
5304 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
5305 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
5306 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
5307 name starts with a hyphen.
5309 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
5310 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
5311 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
5312 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
5313 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
5314 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
5315 number of bytes that will be collected.
5318 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
5319 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
5320 setting the variable trace-notes.
5323 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
5324 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
5325 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
5328 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
5329 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
5330 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
5331 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
5332 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
5335 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
5336 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
5337 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
5341 set debug dwarf2-read
5342 show debug dwarf2-read
5343 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
5344 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
5346 set debug symtab-create
5347 show debug symtab-create
5348 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
5349 creation. The default is off.
5352 show extended-prompt
5353 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
5354 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
5355 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
5356 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
5357 prompt is displayed.
5359 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
5360 show print entry-values
5361 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
5362 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
5363 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
5365 set debug entry-values
5366 show debug entry-values
5367 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
5368 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
5370 set basenames-may-differ
5371 show basenames-may-differ
5372 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
5373 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
5374 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
5375 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
5376 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
5377 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
5378 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
5379 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
5385 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
5386 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
5387 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
5388 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
5390 set trace-stop-notes
5391 show trace-stop-notes
5392 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
5393 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
5394 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
5395 started by someone else.
5397 * New remote packets
5401 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
5405 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
5409 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
5413 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
5417 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
5420 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
5421 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
5425 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
5429 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
5431 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
5433 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
5435 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
5437 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
5438 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
5439 matches the given regular expression.
5441 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
5443 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
5444 dumping the instruction opcodes.
5446 * New command line options
5448 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
5449 This is mostly for testing purposes.
5451 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
5452 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
5454 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
5455 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
5456 source path list instead of augmenting it.
5458 * GDB now understands thread names.
5460 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
5461 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
5463 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
5464 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
5467 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
5468 has been integrated into GDB.
5472 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
5473 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
5474 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
5476 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
5477 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
5478 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
5479 and allows for more dynamic content.
5481 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
5482 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
5483 have an is_valid method.
5485 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
5486 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
5487 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
5489 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
5491 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
5492 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
5493 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
5494 that function like so:
5496 result = some_value (10,20)
5498 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
5499 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
5500 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
5502 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
5503 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
5504 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
5505 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
5506 New function: register_pretty_printer.
5508 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
5509 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
5511 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
5513 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
5516 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
5517 holds the thread's name.
5519 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
5520 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
5521 occurring in the process being debugged.
5522 The following events are currently supported:
5523 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
5524 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
5525 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
5529 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
5530 instantiation. For example, if you have:
5532 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
5534 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
5535 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
5536 was added to GCC 4.5.
5538 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
5539 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
5540 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
5541 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
5542 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
5543 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
5545 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
5546 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
5547 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
5548 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
5549 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
5551 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
5552 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
5553 execution to a label.
5555 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
5556 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
5557 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
5558 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
5560 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
5561 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
5562 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
5565 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
5567 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
5568 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
5569 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
5570 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
5571 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
5572 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
5575 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
5577 While now you see this:
5580 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
5582 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
5585 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
5586 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
5587 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
5588 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
5590 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
5591 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
5592 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
5593 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
5594 section in the user manual for more details.
5596 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
5598 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
5599 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
5601 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
5603 * New native configurations
5605 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
5609 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
5611 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
5612 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
5613 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
5614 in the GDB user manual.
5616 * Guile support was removed.
5618 * New features in the GNU simulator
5620 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
5622 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
5624 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
5626 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
5628 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
5629 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
5630 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
5631 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
5632 was always disabled for such configurations.
5636 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
5638 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
5639 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
5649 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
5650 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
5651 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
5653 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
5655 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
5656 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
5657 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
5658 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
5660 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
5661 mentioned flavors of operators.
5663 ** static const class members
5665 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
5666 class definition has been fixed.
5668 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
5670 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
5671 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
5672 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
5673 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
5674 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
5675 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
5677 * Static tracepoints
5679 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
5680 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
5681 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
5682 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
5683 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
5684 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
5685 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
5686 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
5687 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
5688 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
5689 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
5690 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
5691 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
5692 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
5693 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
5694 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
5695 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
5696 the "New remote packets" section below.
5698 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
5700 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
5701 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
5702 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
5703 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
5707 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
5708 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
5709 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
5710 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
5711 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
5712 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
5713 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
5715 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
5718 * New remote packets
5722 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
5726 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
5727 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
5728 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
5729 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
5730 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
5731 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
5735 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
5739 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
5742 qXfer:statictrace:read
5744 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
5745 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
5746 to gdb's qSupported query.
5750 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
5754 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
5755 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
5757 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
5758 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
5761 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
5763 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
5764 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
5765 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
5766 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
5768 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
5769 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
5770 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
5771 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
5772 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
5773 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
5774 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
5776 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
5777 for static tracepoints support.
5779 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
5781 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
5782 it understands register description.
5784 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
5786 * X86 general purpose registers
5788 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
5789 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
5790 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
5791 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
5792 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
5794 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
5795 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
5796 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
5797 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
5798 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
5799 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
5801 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
5802 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
5803 in the specified file.
5805 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
5806 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
5807 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
5808 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
5809 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
5810 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
5811 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
5812 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
5813 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
5814 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
5818 eval template, expressions...
5819 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
5820 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
5822 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
5823 show target-file-system-kind
5824 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
5827 save breakpoints <filename>
5828 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
5829 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
5830 definitions, use the `source' command.
5832 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
5835 info static-tracepoint-markers
5836 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
5838 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
5839 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
5840 function, line, address, or marker ID.
5844 Enable and disable observer mode.
5846 set may-write-registers on|off
5847 set may-write-memory on|off
5848 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
5849 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
5850 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
5851 set may-interrupt on|off
5852 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
5853 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
5854 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
5855 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
5856 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
5857 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
5858 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
5860 set record memory-query on|off
5861 show record memory-query
5862 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
5863 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
5868 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
5872 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
5873 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
5874 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
5875 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
5876 GDB using Python' in the manual.
5878 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
5879 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
5880 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
5881 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
5883 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
5884 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
5886 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
5888 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
5890 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
5892 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
5893 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
5894 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
5896 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
5897 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
5898 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
5899 regular breakpoints.
5903 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
5905 * D language support.
5906 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
5909 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
5910 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
5911 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
5912 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
5913 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
5915 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
5916 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
5917 conditions of the form:
5919 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
5921 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
5922 interface mentioned above.
5924 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
5928 ** Namespace Support
5930 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
5931 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
5932 namespace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
5933 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namespace C=A; ) the user can
5934 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
5938 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
5939 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
5944 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
5945 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
5949 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
5954 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
5957 * Multi-program debugging.
5959 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
5960 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
5961 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
5962 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
5963 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
5964 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
5965 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
5966 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
5968 * New tracing features
5970 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
5972 ** Trace state variables
5974 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
5975 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
5976 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
5977 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
5978 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
5979 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
5980 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
5981 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
5982 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
5983 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
5987 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
5988 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
5989 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
5990 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
5991 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
5992 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
5993 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
5994 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
5995 the regular trace command.
5997 ** Disconnected tracing
5999 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
6000 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
6001 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
6002 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
6003 connection is lost unexpectedly.
6007 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
6008 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
6009 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
6010 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
6011 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
6012 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
6015 ** Circular trace buffer
6017 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
6018 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
6019 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
6020 not be available for all target agents.
6025 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
6026 the arguments to be comma-separated.
6029 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
6030 which only declare a variable are not shown.
6033 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
6034 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
6037 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
6038 "set script-extension" (see below).
6040 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
6042 record save [<FILENAME>]
6043 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
6044 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
6046 record restore <FILENAME>
6047 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
6048 earlier time, for replay debugging.
6050 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
6053 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
6054 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
6055 inferior has loaded.
6060 maint info program-spaces
6061 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
6063 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
6064 show remote interrupt-sequence
6065 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
6066 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
6067 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
6068 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
6069 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
6071 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
6072 show remote interrupt-on-connect
6073 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
6074 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
6077 set remotebreak [on | off]
6079 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
6081 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
6082 Create or modify a trace state variable.
6085 List trace state variables and their values.
6087 delete tvariable $NAME ...
6088 Delete one or more trace state variables.
6091 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
6092 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
6094 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
6095 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
6097 * New expression syntax
6099 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
6100 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
6104 set follow-exec-mode new|same
6105 show follow-exec-mode
6106 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
6107 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
6108 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
6110 set default-collect EXPR, ...
6111 show default-collect
6112 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
6113 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
6114 such as registers or a critical global variable.
6116 set disconnected-tracing
6117 show disconnected-tracing
6118 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
6119 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
6122 set circular-trace-buffer
6123 show circular-trace-buffer
6124 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
6125 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
6126 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
6127 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
6129 set script-extension off|soft|strict
6130 show script-extension
6131 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
6132 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
6133 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
6134 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
6136 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
6138 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
6139 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
6140 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
6141 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
6142 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
6143 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
6144 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
6147 * Python API Improvements
6149 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
6150 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
6151 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
6153 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
6154 `is_base_class' attribute.
6156 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
6158 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
6159 evaluate an expression.
6161 * New remote packets
6164 Define a trace state variable.
6167 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
6170 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
6173 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
6176 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
6180 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
6182 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
6183 much more reliable. In particular:
6184 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
6185 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
6186 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
6187 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
6188 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
6189 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
6190 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
6191 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
6192 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
6193 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
6194 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
6195 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
6196 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
6197 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
6198 non-threaded programs.
6200 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
6201 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
6202 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
6205 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
6207 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
6208 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
6209 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
6210 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
6211 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
6213 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
6214 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
6215 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
6216 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
6217 for tracepoint actions.
6219 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
6220 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
6221 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
6223 * Process record and replay
6225 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
6226 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
6227 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
6230 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
6231 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
6232 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
6235 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
6236 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
6239 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
6240 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
6241 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
6242 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
6243 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
6244 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
6245 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
6246 the installation instructions for more information.
6248 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
6249 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
6250 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
6251 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
6253 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
6254 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
6256 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
6257 now complete on file names.
6259 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
6260 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
6261 For instance, consider:
6263 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
6264 # struct example variable;
6267 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
6268 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
6270 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
6271 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
6273 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
6274 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
6277 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
6278 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
6279 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
6281 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
6282 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
6283 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
6284 and simulator targets may also provide them.
6286 * New remote packets
6289 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
6292 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
6293 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
6294 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
6297 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
6298 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
6301 Obtains additional operating system information
6305 Read or write additional signal information.
6307 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
6309 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
6310 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
6311 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
6313 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
6314 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
6316 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
6317 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
6318 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
6320 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
6321 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
6323 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
6325 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
6327 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
6328 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
6330 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
6331 list of section offsets.
6333 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
6334 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
6335 have also been fixed.
6337 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
6338 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
6339 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
6341 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
6344 template<typename T> class C { };
6347 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
6349 ptype C<char const *>
6350 ptype C<char const*>
6351 ptype C<const char *>
6352 ptype C<const char*>
6354 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
6356 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
6357 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
6359 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
6360 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
6361 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
6363 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
6364 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
6366 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
6369 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
6370 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
6372 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
6373 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
6378 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
6379 available is determined at configure time.
6381 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
6383 * Ada tasking support
6385 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
6389 Print the list of Ada tasks.
6391 Print detailed information about task number N.
6393 Print the task number of the current task.
6395 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
6397 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
6398 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
6400 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
6402 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
6403 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
6404 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
6405 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
6406 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
6407 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
6410 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
6411 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
6414 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
6415 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
6416 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
6417 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
6420 * Multi-architecture debugging.
6422 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
6423 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
6424 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
6425 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
6426 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
6428 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
6429 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
6430 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
6431 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
6432 --enable-targets configure option.
6434 * Non-stop mode debugging.
6436 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
6437 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
6438 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
6439 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
6440 section in the user manual for more information.
6442 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
6443 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
6444 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
6445 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
6446 extensions on linux targets.
6448 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
6450 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
6451 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
6452 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
6453 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
6454 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
6455 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
6456 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
6457 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
6458 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
6460 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
6462 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
6464 maint set python print-stack
6465 maint show python print-stack
6466 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
6469 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
6474 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
6478 Show operating system information about processes.
6481 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
6484 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
6487 Detach from inferior number NUM.
6490 Kill inferior number NUM.
6494 set spu stop-on-load
6495 show spu stop-on-load
6496 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
6498 set spu auto-flush-cache
6499 show spu auto-flush-cache
6500 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
6501 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
6503 set sh calling-convention
6504 show sh calling-convention
6505 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
6508 show debug timestamp
6509 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
6511 set disassemble-next-line
6512 show disassemble-next-line
6513 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
6516 set remote noack-packet
6517 show remote noack-packet
6518 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
6519 under "New remote packets."
6521 set remote query-attached-packet
6522 show remote query-attached-packet
6523 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
6525 set remote read-siginfo-object
6526 show remote read-siginfo-object
6527 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
6530 set remote write-siginfo-object
6531 show remote write-siginfo-object
6532 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
6535 set remote reverse-continue
6536 show remote reverse-continue
6537 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
6539 set remote reverse-step
6540 show remote reverse-step
6541 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
6543 set displaced-stepping
6544 show displaced-stepping
6545 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
6546 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
6547 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
6550 show debug displaced
6551 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
6553 maint set internal-error
6554 maint show internal-error
6555 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
6557 maint set internal-warning
6558 maint show internal-warning
6559 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
6564 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
6566 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
6567 show multiple-symbols
6568 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
6569 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
6570 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
6572 set breakpoint always-inserted
6573 show breakpoint always-inserted
6574 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
6575 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
6576 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
6578 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
6579 show arm fallback-mode
6580 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
6582 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
6583 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
6584 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
6585 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
6587 set arm unwind-secure-frames
6588 Enable unwinding from Non-secure to Secure mode on Cortex-M with
6590 This can trigger security exceptions when unwinding exception stacks.
6592 set disable-randomization
6593 show disable-randomization
6594 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
6595 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
6596 multiple debugging sessions.
6600 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
6605 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
6606 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
6607 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
6608 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
6610 set target-wide-charset
6611 show target-wide-charset
6612 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
6613 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
6615 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
6617 set tcp connect-timeout
6618 show tcp connect-timeout
6619 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
6620 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
6621 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
6623 set libthread-db-search-path
6624 show libthread-db-search-path
6625 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
6628 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
6629 show schedule-multiple
6630 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
6631 the current process.
6635 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
6636 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
6637 affecting correctness.
6639 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
6640 show interactive-mode
6641 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
6642 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
6643 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
6644 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
6645 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
6650 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
6651 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
6652 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
6656 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
6657 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
6658 alias for the `fork' command.
6661 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
6662 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
6663 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
6666 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
6667 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
6668 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
6672 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
6673 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
6674 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
6677 * New native configurations
6679 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
6681 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
6685 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
6686 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
6687 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
6690 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
6691 (mingw32ce) debugging.
6697 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
6699 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
6701 * New native configurations
6703 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
6704 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
6708 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
6709 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
6711 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
6713 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
6714 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
6715 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
6716 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
6718 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
6719 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
6721 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
6724 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
6725 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
6726 and in inlined functions.
6728 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
6729 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
6730 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
6732 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
6734 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
6735 registers on PowerPC targets.
6737 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
6738 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
6740 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
6741 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
6743 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
6744 extended-remote mode.
6746 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
6747 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
6748 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
6749 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
6751 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
6752 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
6753 target architectures.
6755 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
6756 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
6757 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
6758 stored in two consecutive float registers.
6760 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
6763 * Improved support for debugging Ada
6764 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
6766 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
6767 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
6768 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
6769 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
6771 - Improved command completion in Ada
6774 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
6779 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
6780 show print frame-arguments
6781 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
6782 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
6787 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
6794 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
6796 * New remote packets
6803 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
6806 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
6810 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
6812 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
6814 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
6815 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
6816 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
6818 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
6819 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
6820 -Bsymbolic linker option.
6822 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
6823 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
6826 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
6827 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
6829 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
6830 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
6832 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
6834 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
6835 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
6836 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
6838 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
6839 automatically displayed as character or string data.
6841 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
6842 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
6845 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
6846 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
6847 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
6849 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
6852 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
6853 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
6854 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
6856 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
6858 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
6860 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
6861 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
6862 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
6864 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
6865 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
6867 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
6868 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
6869 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
6870 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
6871 Windows and SymbianOS).
6873 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
6874 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
6876 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
6877 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
6883 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
6884 when debugging using remote targets.
6886 set mem inaccessible-by-default
6887 show mem inaccessible-by-default
6888 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
6889 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
6890 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
6891 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
6892 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
6894 set breakpoint auto-hw
6895 show breakpoint auto-hw
6896 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
6897 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
6898 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
6899 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
6900 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
6901 including "next" and "finish".
6904 catch exception unhandled
6905 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
6908 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
6912 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
6913 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
6914 an alias to "set sysroot".
6917 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
6918 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
6921 * New native configurations
6923 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
6926 unset tdesc filename
6928 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
6929 not query the target for its built-in description.
6933 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
6934 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
6935 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
6937 * New remote packets
6940 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
6941 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
6943 qXfer:features:read:
6944 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
6949 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
6950 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
6952 qXfer:libraries:read:
6953 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
6954 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
6955 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
6956 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
6960 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
6968 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
6969 i[34567]86-*-netware*
6970 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
6971 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
6973 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
6976 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
6977 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
6986 * Other removed features
6993 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
7000 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
7005 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
7006 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
7011 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
7012 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
7014 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
7016 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
7017 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
7018 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
7019 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
7021 MIPS ".pdr" sections
7023 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
7024 in debugging information.
7028 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
7029 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
7031 set mips stack-arg-size
7032 set mips saved-gpreg-size
7034 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
7036 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
7041 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
7043 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
7044 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
7045 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
7047 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
7048 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
7051 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
7052 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
7054 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
7055 stub provides the required support.
7057 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
7058 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
7063 unset substitute-path
7064 show substitute-path
7065 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
7066 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
7067 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
7068 between compilation and debugging.
7072 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
7073 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
7074 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
7078 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
7080 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
7081 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
7083 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
7085 * New remote packets
7088 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
7089 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
7090 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
7091 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
7095 Fetch an OS auxiliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
7096 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
7098 qXfer:memory-map:read:
7099 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
7100 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
7105 Erase and program a flash memory device.
7107 * Removed remote packets
7110 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
7111 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
7113 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
7117 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
7119 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
7123 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
7124 only if it doesn't already have a value.
7126 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
7128 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
7130 restart <n> Return the program state to a
7131 previously saved state.
7133 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
7135 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
7137 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
7138 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
7140 info forks List forks of the user program that
7141 are available to be debugged.
7143 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
7144 forks of the user program that are
7145 available to be debugged.
7147 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
7148 that are available to be debugged (and
7149 kill the forked process).
7151 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
7152 that are available to be debugged (and
7153 allow the process to continue).
7157 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
7159 * Improved Windows host support
7161 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
7162 native console support, and remote communications using either
7163 network sockets or serial ports.
7165 * Improved Modula-2 language support
7167 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
7168 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
7169 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
7170 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
7171 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
7172 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
7176 The ARM rdi-share module.
7178 The Netware NLM debug server.
7180 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
7182 * New native configurations
7184 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
7185 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
7189 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
7191 * New command line options
7193 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
7194 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
7195 the child (debugged) program exited with.
7196 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
7197 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
7198 specified multiple times and in conjunction
7199 with the --command (-x) option.
7201 * Deprecated commands removed
7203 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
7207 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
7208 othernames set arm disassembler
7209 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
7210 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
7211 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
7214 * New BSD user-level threads support
7216 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
7217 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
7220 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
7221 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
7222 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
7224 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
7225 are not yet supported.
7227 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
7228 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
7230 * REMOVED configurations and files
7232 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
7233 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
7234 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
7236 * New "set print array-indexes" command
7238 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
7239 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
7242 * VAX floating point support
7244 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
7246 * User-defined command support
7248 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
7249 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
7250 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
7252 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
7254 * New command line option
7256 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
7259 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
7261 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
7262 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
7263 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
7264 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
7265 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
7267 * Internationalization
7269 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
7270 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
7271 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
7275 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
7276 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
7277 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
7279 * New native configurations
7281 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
7285 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
7286 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
7288 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
7290 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
7291 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
7292 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
7295 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
7296 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
7297 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
7307 powerpc bdm protocol
7309 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
7310 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
7312 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7314 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7315 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7316 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7317 permanently REMOVED.
7326 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
7328 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
7330 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
7331 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
7334 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
7336 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
7337 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
7338 IRIX long double values).
7342 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
7343 command. This problem has been fixed.
7345 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
7347 * Fix for ``many threads''
7349 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
7350 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
7353 ptrace: No such process.
7354 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
7356 This problem has been fixed.
7358 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
7360 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
7363 * New ``start'' command.
7365 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
7367 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
7369 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
7370 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
7371 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
7373 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
7374 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
7375 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
7376 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
7377 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
7378 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
7379 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
7380 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
7381 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
7383 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
7385 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
7386 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
7387 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
7388 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
7389 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
7391 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
7392 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
7393 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
7395 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
7397 * New native configurations
7399 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
7400 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
7401 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
7402 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
7403 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
7404 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
7405 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
7407 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
7409 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
7410 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
7411 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
7412 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
7413 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
7414 work, was also included.
7416 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
7417 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
7427 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
7428 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
7430 * REMOVED configurations and files
7432 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
7433 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
7434 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
7435 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
7436 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
7437 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
7438 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
7439 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
7440 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
7441 sonymips mips-sony-*
7442 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
7444 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
7446 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
7448 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
7449 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
7450 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
7451 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
7454 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
7456 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
7457 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
7458 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
7459 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
7460 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
7461 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
7464 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
7466 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
7468 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
7469 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
7470 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
7472 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
7474 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
7475 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
7477 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
7479 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
7480 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
7481 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
7483 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
7485 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
7486 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
7488 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
7490 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
7491 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
7492 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
7494 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
7496 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
7497 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
7498 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
7500 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
7502 * Removed --with-mmalloc
7504 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
7505 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
7507 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
7509 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
7510 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
7511 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
7512 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
7514 * Revised SPARC target
7516 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
7517 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
7518 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
7519 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
7520 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
7524 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
7525 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
7526 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
7529 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
7531 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
7532 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
7535 * C++ nested types and namespaces
7537 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
7538 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
7539 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
7540 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
7541 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
7542 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
7543 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
7544 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
7545 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
7547 * New native configurations
7549 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
7550 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
7551 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
7552 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
7553 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
7555 * New debugging protocols
7557 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
7559 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
7561 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
7562 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
7563 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
7565 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7567 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7568 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7569 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7570 permanently REMOVED.
7572 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
7573 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
7574 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
7575 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
7576 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
7577 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
7578 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
7579 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
7580 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
7581 sonymips mips-sony-*
7582 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
7584 * REMOVED configurations and files
7586 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7587 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7588 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7589 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7590 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7591 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
7592 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7593 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
7594 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
7595 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
7596 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
7597 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
7598 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
7599 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
7600 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
7601 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7602 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7604 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
7608 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
7609 integrated into GDB.
7611 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
7613 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
7614 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
7615 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
7618 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
7619 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
7620 DWARF 2 CFI support.
7624 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
7625 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
7626 remote protocol documentation for details.
7628 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
7630 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
7631 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
7632 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
7635 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
7637 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
7638 per-thread variables.
7640 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
7642 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
7643 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
7645 * Separate debug info.
7647 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
7648 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
7649 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
7650 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
7651 and optional debug files.
7653 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
7655 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
7656 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
7659 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
7660 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
7664 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
7665 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
7666 considered "usable".
7668 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
7670 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
7671 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
7674 * GDB supports logging output to a file
7676 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
7677 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
7679 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
7681 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
7682 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
7685 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
7687 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
7688 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
7692 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
7693 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
7694 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
7695 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
7696 data, for more informative profiling results.
7698 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
7700 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
7701 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
7702 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
7704 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
7707 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
7708 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
7709 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
7710 in a subsequent -var-update.
7712 * New native configurations.
7714 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
7716 * Multi-arched targets.
7718 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
7719 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
7721 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7723 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7724 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7725 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7726 permanently REMOVED.
7728 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7729 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
7730 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7731 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
7732 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7733 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
7734 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
7735 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
7736 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
7737 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
7738 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
7739 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7741 * REMOVED configurations and files
7744 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7745 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7746 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
7747 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
7748 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
7749 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
7751 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
7752 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7753 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7754 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7755 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7756 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7758 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
7760 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
7761 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
7762 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
7763 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
7764 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
7766 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
7768 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
7770 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
7771 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
7772 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
7773 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
7774 shared libs like mad''.
7776 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
7778 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
7779 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
7780 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
7781 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
7783 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
7785 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
7786 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
7789 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
7790 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
7792 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
7793 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
7795 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
7796 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
7797 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
7798 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
7800 * Multi-arched targets.
7802 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
7803 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
7805 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
7806 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
7807 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
7811 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
7814 * New native configurations
7816 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
7817 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
7818 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
7819 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
7821 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7823 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7824 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7825 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7826 permanently REMOVED.
7828 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
7829 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7830 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7831 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7832 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7833 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
7834 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
7835 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
7836 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
7837 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
7839 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
7840 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
7842 * OBSOLETE languages
7844 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
7846 * REMOVED configurations and files
7848 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
7849 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7850 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7851 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7852 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7854 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
7856 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
7858 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
7859 commands. The default is 1024.
7861 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
7863 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
7865 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
7867 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
7868 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
7869 from a file into memory (restore).
7871 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
7873 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
7874 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
7875 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
7877 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
7885 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
7886 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
7887 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
7889 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
7890 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
7891 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
7893 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
7894 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
7895 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
7897 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
7898 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
7899 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
7901 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
7903 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
7905 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
7906 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
7907 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
7908 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
7909 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
7910 (notably embedded) targets.
7912 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
7914 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
7915 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
7916 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
7917 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
7919 * New command line option
7921 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
7923 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
7925 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
7926 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
7927 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
7928 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
7929 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
7930 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
7931 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
7932 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
7933 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
7934 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
7936 * Changes in ARM configurations.
7938 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
7939 configuration is fully multi-arch.
7941 * New native configurations
7943 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
7944 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
7945 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
7946 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
7950 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
7952 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
7954 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
7955 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
7956 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
7957 permanently REMOVED.
7959 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
7960 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
7961 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7962 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7963 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7965 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
7967 * REMOVED configurations and files
7969 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7971 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
7972 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
7973 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
7974 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
7975 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
7976 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7977 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
7978 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
7979 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
7980 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
7981 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
7983 * Changes to command line processing
7985 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
7986 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
7988 * Changes to key bindings
7990 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
7992 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
7994 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
7996 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
7999 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
8001 Numerous documentation fixes.
8003 Numerous testsuite fixes.
8005 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
8007 * New native configurations
8009 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
8010 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
8011 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
8012 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
8013 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
8014 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
8018 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
8020 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
8022 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
8024 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
8025 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
8026 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
8027 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
8028 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
8030 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
8031 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
8032 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
8033 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
8034 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
8035 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
8036 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
8037 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
8039 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
8040 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
8042 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
8043 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
8044 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
8045 permanently REMOVED.
8047 * REMOVED configurations and files
8049 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
8050 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
8052 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
8056 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
8058 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
8059 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
8064 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
8066 * The MI enabled by default.
8068 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
8069 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
8070 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
8071 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
8072 which is now deprecated.
8074 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
8076 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
8077 main features are supported:
8079 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
8081 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
8084 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
8086 - a Pascal expression parser.
8088 However, some important features are not yet supported.
8090 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
8092 - there are some problems with boolean types;
8094 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
8095 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
8097 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
8099 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
8101 * Changes in completion.
8103 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
8104 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
8105 users expect at the shell prompt.
8107 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
8108 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
8109 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
8110 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
8111 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
8112 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
8113 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
8115 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
8117 * New platform-independent commands:
8119 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
8120 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
8121 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
8123 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
8125 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
8126 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
8127 many threads as your system allows you to have.
8129 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
8131 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
8132 multi-threaded programs though.
8134 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
8136 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
8138 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
8139 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
8142 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
8144 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
8145 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
8146 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
8147 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
8148 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
8151 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
8152 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
8153 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
8155 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
8157 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
8158 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
8160 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
8161 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
8164 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
8165 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
8166 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
8167 a given linear address.
8169 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
8170 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
8171 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
8173 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
8175 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
8177 * Changes in documentation.
8179 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
8180 Documentation License.
8182 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
8185 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
8187 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
8190 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
8191 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
8192 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
8194 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
8196 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
8197 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
8198 contents of this file.
8202 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
8204 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
8206 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
8208 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
8209 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
8210 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
8211 greater level of detail.
8213 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
8215 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
8216 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
8217 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
8220 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
8222 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
8223 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
8224 machines ``out of the box''.
8226 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
8227 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
8228 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
8229 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
8230 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
8232 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
8233 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
8234 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
8235 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
8236 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
8238 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
8239 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
8242 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
8245 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
8246 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
8247 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
8248 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
8250 * New native configurations
8252 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
8253 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
8257 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
8258 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
8259 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
8260 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
8262 * OBSOLETE configurations
8264 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
8265 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
8267 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
8270 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
8271 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
8272 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
8273 be permanently REMOVED.
8275 * Gould support removed
8277 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
8279 * New features for SVR4
8281 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
8282 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
8283 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
8285 * Many C++ enhancements
8287 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
8288 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
8290 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
8292 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
8293 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
8294 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
8295 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
8297 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
8298 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
8300 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
8302 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
8303 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transferred as 32
8304 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
8306 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
8307 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
8309 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
8311 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
8312 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
8313 include ``set remote P-packet''.
8315 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
8317 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
8318 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
8319 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
8321 * ``apropos'' command added.
8323 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
8324 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
8325 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
8329 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
8330 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
8331 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
8332 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
8333 enabled by configuring with:
8335 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
8337 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
8339 * New native configurations
8341 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
8342 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
8343 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
8347 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
8348 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
8349 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
8351 * OBSOLETE configurations
8353 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
8355 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
8356 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
8357 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
8358 be permanently REMOVED.
8362 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
8363 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
8364 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
8365 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
8366 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
8367 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
8368 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
8373 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
8375 * set extension-language
8377 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
8378 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
8379 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
8380 set extension-language .c c++
8381 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
8382 and their associated languages.
8384 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
8386 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
8387 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
8388 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
8392 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
8393 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
8395 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
8396 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
8398 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
8399 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
8400 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
8401 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
8402 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
8403 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
8404 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
8405 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
8407 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
8408 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
8409 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
8410 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
8414 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
8415 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
8416 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
8417 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
8418 for xdb and dbx commands.
8422 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
8423 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
8424 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
8426 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
8427 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
8428 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
8430 * Debugging across forks
8432 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
8437 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
8438 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
8439 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
8441 * GDB remote protocol additions
8443 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
8444 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
8445 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
8446 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
8448 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
8449 full 64-bit address. The command
8451 set remoteaddresssize 32
8453 can be used to revert to the old behavior. For existing remote stubs
8454 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
8457 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
8458 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
8460 maint packet heythere
8462 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
8463 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
8466 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
8467 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
8468 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
8470 * Tracing can collect general expressions
8472 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
8473 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
8474 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
8476 * mask-address variable for Mips
8478 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
8479 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
8480 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
8482 * Higher serial baud rates
8484 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
8485 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
8486 to achieve all of these rates.)
8490 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
8491 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
8494 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
8496 * New native configurations
8498 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
8499 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
8500 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
8501 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
8502 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
8503 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
8504 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
8508 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
8509 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
8510 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
8511 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
8512 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
8513 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
8514 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
8515 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
8516 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
8517 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
8518 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
8520 * New debugging protocols
8522 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
8523 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
8524 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
8525 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
8526 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
8527 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
8531 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
8532 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
8537 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
8538 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
8540 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
8542 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
8543 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
8544 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
8546 * Live range splitting
8548 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
8549 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
8550 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
8554 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
8555 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
8559 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
8560 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
8561 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
8566 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
8571 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
8572 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
8573 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
8574 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
8575 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
8576 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
8580 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
8581 the symbol at the specified address.
8585 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
8586 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
8587 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
8588 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
8589 file tracepoint.c for more details.
8593 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
8594 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
8595 of most MIPS variants.
8599 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
8600 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
8601 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
8605 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
8606 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
8607 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
8608 the possible architectures.
8610 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
8612 * New native configurations
8614 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
8615 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
8616 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
8617 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
8618 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
8619 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
8623 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
8624 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
8625 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
8626 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
8627 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
8629 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
8633 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
8634 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
8635 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
8636 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
8637 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
8641 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
8643 * Windows 95/NT native
8645 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
8646 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
8647 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
8648 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
8649 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
8651 * dont-repeat command
8653 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
8654 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
8655 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
8656 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
8658 * Send break instead of ^C
8660 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
8661 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
8662 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
8664 * Remote protocol timeout
8666 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
8667 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
8668 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
8670 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
8672 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
8673 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
8674 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
8675 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
8676 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
8678 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
8679 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
8680 automatically on hpux10.
8682 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
8684 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
8686 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
8688 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
8689 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
8690 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
8691 every character. The default value is 1050.
8693 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
8695 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
8696 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
8697 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
8698 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
8699 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
8700 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
8702 * Speedups for remote debugging
8704 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
8705 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
8706 and more efficient S-record downloading.
8708 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
8710 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
8711 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
8713 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
8715 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
8717 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
8718 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
8720 * Remote targets use caching
8722 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
8723 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
8724 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
8725 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
8726 off' turns the data cache off.
8728 * Remote targets may have threads
8730 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
8731 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
8732 gdb/remote.c for details.
8736 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
8737 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
8738 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
8739 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
8740 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
8741 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
8742 sequence is something like
8744 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
8746 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
8750 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
8751 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
8752 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
8753 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
8754 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
8755 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
8756 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
8757 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
8761 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
8762 but does simplify configuration and building.
8766 GDB now supports hpux10.
8768 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
8770 * New native configurations
8772 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
8773 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
8774 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
8775 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
8779 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
8780 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
8781 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
8782 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
8785 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
8787 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
8788 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
8789 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
8790 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
8791 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
8793 * Arguments to user-defined commands
8795 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
8796 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
8799 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
8801 To execute the command use:
8804 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
8805 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
8806 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
8808 * New `if' and `while' commands
8810 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
8811 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
8812 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
8813 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
8814 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
8815 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
8816 if the expression is zero.
8818 * Fortran source language mode
8820 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
8821 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
8822 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
8823 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
8826 * Better HPUX support
8828 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
8829 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
8830 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
8831 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
8832 that behavior do the following before running the program:
8838 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
8839 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
8845 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
8846 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
8849 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
8850 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
8852 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
8854 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
8855 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
8856 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
8857 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
8858 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
8859 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
8861 * New DOS host serial code
8863 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
8864 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
8867 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
8869 * New "complete" command
8871 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
8872 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
8874 * Trailing space optional in prompt
8876 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
8877 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
8879 * Breakpoint hit counts
8881 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
8882 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
8883 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
8884 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
8885 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
8888 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
8890 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
8891 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
8892 arrays actually contain only short strings.
8894 * Shared library breakpoints
8896 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
8897 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
8899 * Hardware watchpoints
8901 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
8902 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
8904 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
8908 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
8909 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
8911 * Improved Irix 5 support
8913 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
8915 * Improved HPPA support
8917 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
8919 * New native configurations
8921 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
8922 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
8923 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
8924 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
8928 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
8929 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
8932 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
8934 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
8935 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
8939 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
8940 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
8942 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
8944 * Irix 5 is now supported
8948 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
8949 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
8950 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
8951 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
8952 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
8955 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
8957 * User visible changes:
8961 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
8962 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
8963 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
8964 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
8965 debugging info for the mips target).
8967 * DEC Alpha native support
8969 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
8970 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
8971 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
8972 Alpha-specific notes.
8974 * Preliminary thread implementation
8976 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
8978 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
8980 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
8981 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
8984 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
8986 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
8987 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
8988 call methods, ...etc.
8990 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
8992 * User visible changes:
8994 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
8995 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
8996 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
8997 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
8999 Filename completion now works.
9001 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
9002 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
9003 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
9005 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
9006 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
9007 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
9008 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
9009 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
9013 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
9014 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
9017 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
9021 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
9022 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
9023 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
9027 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
9028 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
9029 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
9030 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
9031 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
9035 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
9036 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
9037 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
9039 * New targets supported
9041 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
9042 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
9043 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
9044 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
9045 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
9047 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
9048 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
9049 GO32 memory extender.
9051 * New remote protocols
9053 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
9055 * New source languages supported
9057 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
9058 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
9059 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publicly available.
9062 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
9064 * HP Precision Architecture supported
9066 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
9067 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
9068 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
9069 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
9070 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
9071 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
9073 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
9075 * Faster and better demangling
9077 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
9078 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
9079 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
9080 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
9081 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
9082 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
9085 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
9086 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
9087 compiler does not actually implement.
9089 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
9091 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
9092 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
9093 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
9094 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
9095 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
9096 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
9099 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
9100 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
9102 * Improved configure script
9104 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
9105 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
9106 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
9107 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
9109 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
9110 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
9111 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
9112 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
9113 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
9114 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
9116 * Documentation improvements
9118 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
9119 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
9120 before submitting changes.
9122 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
9123 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
9124 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
9125 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
9126 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
9128 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
9129 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
9130 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
9131 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
9132 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
9133 around this problem.
9137 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
9138 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
9139 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
9142 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
9143 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
9145 * New native hosts supported
9147 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
9148 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
9150 * New targets supported
9152 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
9154 * New file formats supported
9156 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
9157 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
9161 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
9163 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
9164 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
9166 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
9167 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
9168 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
9170 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
9171 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
9173 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
9174 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
9175 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
9178 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
9179 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
9180 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
9181 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
9182 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
9184 * Internal improvements
9186 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
9187 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
9189 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
9190 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
9191 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
9192 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
9193 shared code that handles any of them.
9195 * New command line options
9197 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
9201 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
9202 General Public License.
9204 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
9206 * Host/native/target split
9208 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
9209 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
9210 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
9211 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
9212 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
9214 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
9215 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
9216 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
9217 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
9218 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
9219 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
9220 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
9222 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
9223 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
9224 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
9226 * New hosts supported
9228 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
9229 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
9230 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
9232 * New targets supported
9234 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
9235 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
9237 * New native hosts supported
9239 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
9240 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
9241 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
9243 * New file formats supported
9245 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
9246 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
9247 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
9251 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
9252 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
9253 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
9255 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
9257 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
9258 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
9259 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
9260 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
9264 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
9265 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
9266 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
9268 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
9272 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
9273 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
9276 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
9277 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
9279 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
9280 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
9281 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
9282 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
9283 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
9284 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
9286 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
9287 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
9288 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
9289 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
9293 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
9294 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
9295 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
9296 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
9297 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
9299 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
9300 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
9301 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
9302 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
9306 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
9307 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
9308 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
9309 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
9310 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
9311 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
9312 each instruction being stepped through.
9314 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
9315 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
9317 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
9318 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
9319 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
9320 processor with a serial port.
9324 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
9325 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
9326 supported, and what files each one uses.
9330 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
9331 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
9332 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
9333 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
9335 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
9336 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
9337 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
9338 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
9342 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
9343 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
9344 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
9345 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
9346 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
9347 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
9349 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
9352 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
9354 * Better support for C++ function names
9356 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
9357 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
9358 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
9359 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
9360 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
9362 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
9363 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
9364 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
9365 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
9366 for the list of formats.
9368 * G++ symbol mangling problem
9370 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
9371 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
9372 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
9373 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
9374 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
9375 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
9378 * New 'maintenance' command
9380 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
9381 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
9382 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
9384 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
9385 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
9386 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
9387 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
9388 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
9389 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
9391 The following commands are new:
9393 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
9394 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
9395 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
9397 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
9399 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
9400 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
9401 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
9402 read after argv processing.
9404 * New hosts supported
9406 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
9408 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
9410 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
9411 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
9412 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
9413 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
9414 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
9417 * New targets supported
9419 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
9421 * More smarts about finding #include files
9423 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
9424 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
9425 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
9426 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
9427 the one that contains your sources.
9429 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
9430 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
9431 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
9433 * Interesting infernals change
9435 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
9436 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
9437 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
9438 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
9440 * Bug fixes (of course!)
9442 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
9443 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
9444 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
9446 See the ChangeLog for details.
9448 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
9450 * New machines supported (host and target)
9452 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
9454 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
9456 * New malloc package
9458 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
9459 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
9460 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
9461 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
9462 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
9463 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
9467 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
9468 'help info proc' for details.
9470 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
9472 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
9473 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
9476 * File name changes for MS-DOS
9478 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
9479 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
9480 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
9481 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
9482 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
9483 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
9485 * Cross byte order fixes
9487 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
9488 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
9490 * New -mapped and -readnow options
9492 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
9493 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
9494 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
9495 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
9496 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
9497 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
9498 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
9499 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
9500 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
9501 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
9503 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
9504 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
9505 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
9506 slower, but makes future operations faster.
9508 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
9509 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
9510 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
9513 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
9515 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
9516 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
9517 shared across multiple host platforms.
9519 * longjmp() handling
9521 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
9522 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
9523 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
9524 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
9528 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
9529 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
9534 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
9535 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
9536 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
9538 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
9540 * New machines supported (host and target)
9542 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
9544 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
9545 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
9547 * New machines supported (target)
9549 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
9553 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
9554 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
9555 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
9557 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
9558 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
9559 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
9560 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
9561 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
9564 * New features for SVR4
9566 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
9567 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
9568 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
9570 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
9571 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
9572 it prints the address mappings of the process.
9574 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
9575 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were required (if any).
9577 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
9579 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
9580 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
9581 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
9582 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
9583 same code linked statically.
9587 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
9588 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
9589 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
9590 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicitly
9591 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
9592 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
9596 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
9597 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
9598 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
9601 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
9603 * New machines supported (host and target)
9605 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
9606 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
9607 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
9609 * Almost SCO Unix support
9611 We had hoped to support:
9612 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
9613 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
9614 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
9615 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
9617 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
9619 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
9620 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
9621 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
9622 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
9627 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
9628 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
9629 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
9633 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
9634 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
9635 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
9637 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
9639 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
9640 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
9641 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
9643 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
9644 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
9645 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
9646 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
9649 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
9650 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
9651 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
9652 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
9655 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
9656 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
9659 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
9660 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
9661 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
9664 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
9666 * Improved configuration
9668 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
9669 Porting BFD is simpler.
9673 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
9674 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
9675 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
9676 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
9680 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
9682 * New host supported (not target)
9684 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
9687 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
9689 * Multiple source language support
9691 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
9692 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
9693 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
9694 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
9695 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
9696 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
9700 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
9701 currently under development at the State University of New York at
9702 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
9703 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
9705 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
9706 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
9707 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
9709 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
9710 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
9714 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
9715 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
9716 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
9717 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
9720 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
9722 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
9723 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
9724 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
9725 examining core files.
9729 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
9732 * New machines supported (host and target)
9734 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
9735 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
9736 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
9738 * New hosts supported (not targets)
9740 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
9742 * New targets supported (not hosts)
9744 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
9745 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
9746 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
9748 * New remote interfaces
9754 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
9758 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
9760 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
9761 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
9762 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
9763 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
9764 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
9765 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
9766 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
9767 stub on the target system.
9769 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
9771 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
9772 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
9773 object file types such as a.out and coff.
9775 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
9776 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
9779 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
9781 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
9782 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
9784 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
9785 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
9786 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
9788 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
9789 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
9790 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
9791 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
9793 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
9794 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
9795 it is already running. Default is ON.
9797 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
9798 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
9799 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
9800 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
9803 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
9804 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
9805 or the value of the environment variable
9808 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
9809 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
9812 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
9813 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
9814 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
9816 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
9817 history expansion will be performed on
9818 command line input. The default is OFF.
9820 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
9821 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
9822 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
9824 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
9825 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
9826 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
9829 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
9830 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
9831 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
9834 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
9835 ``set width'' instead.
9837 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
9838 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
9839 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
9840 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
9842 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
9845 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
9848 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
9851 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
9854 * Support for Epoch Environment.
9856 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
9857 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
9858 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
9862 * Support for Shared Libraries
9864 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
9865 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
9866 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
9867 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
9868 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
9869 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
9870 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
9871 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
9873 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
9874 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
9875 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
9877 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
9882 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
9883 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
9884 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
9885 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
9886 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
9887 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
9889 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
9891 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
9893 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9894 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9895 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
9898 * C++ multiple inheritance
9900 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
9903 * C++ exception handling
9905 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
9906 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
9907 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
9910 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
9911 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
9912 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
9914 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
9915 current stack frame.
9918 * Minor command changes
9920 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
9921 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
9922 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
9924 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
9925 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
9926 frames without printing.
9928 * New directory command
9930 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
9931 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
9932 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
9933 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
9934 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
9936 * Configuring GDB for compilation
9938 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
9941 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
9942 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
9943 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
9944 where the program that you are debugging will run.