What has changed in GDB?
(Organized release by release)
-*** Changes since GDB 8.0
+*** Changes since GDB 8.3
+
+* 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
+
+* New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
+ provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
+ features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
+ scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
+ such as in system-wide init files.
+
+* GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
+ FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
+ architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
+ amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
+
+* Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
+
+* Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
+ imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
+
+* Python API
+
+ ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
+ string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
+ optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
+ 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
+ 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
+
+ ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
+ type was defined in.
+
+* New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
+ provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
+ GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
+
+* New commands
+
+| [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
+| -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
+pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
+pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
+ Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
+ With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
+ and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
+
+set may-call-functions [on|off]
+show may-call-functions
+ This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
+ the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
+ defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
+ can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
+ such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
+ an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
+ in the program.
+
+set print finish [on|off]
+show print finish
+ This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
+ that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
+ still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
+ default is `on'.
+
+set print max-depth
+show print max-depth
+ Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
+ replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
+ The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
+ the old behavior back.
+
+set logging debugredirect [on|off]
+ By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
+ Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
+
+set style title foreground COLOR
+set style title background COLOR
+set style title intensity VALUE
+ Control the styling of titles.
+
+set style highlight foreground COLOR
+set style highlight background COLOR
+set style highlight intensity VALUE
+ Control the styling of highlightings.
+
+* Changed commands
+
+help
+ The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
+ readibility of its output by styling the classes and
+ command names.
+
+apropos [-v] REGEXP
+ Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
+ title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
+ a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
+ of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
+ the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
+
+show style
+ The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
+ a style name in their output using its own style, to help
+ the user visualize the different styles.
+
+
+* New MI commands
+
+-complete
+ This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
+ were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
+ frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
+
+* Testsuite
+
+ The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
+ used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
+ GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
+ are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
+
+*** Changes in GDB 8.3
+
+* GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
+ PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
+ HTM registers.
+
+* GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
+ C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
+ support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
+ and operators.
+
+ This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
+ (the C++ plug-in).
+
+* GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
+ can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
+ 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
+
+* DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
+ symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
+
+* Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
+ debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
+ see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
+ in the GDB user manual.
+
+* GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
+ executed failed.
+
+* The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
+
+* System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
+ When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
+ implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
+ at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
+ the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
+ kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
+ kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
+ The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
+ so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
+ catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
+ binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
+ binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
+
+* Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
+ Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
+ source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
+ information.
+
+* Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
+ lucid.
+
+* New commands
+
+set debug compile-cplus-types
+show debug compile-cplus-types
+ Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
+ C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
+ for other languages.
+
+set debug skip
+show debug skip
+ Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
+ displayed.
+
+frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
+ Apply a command to some frames.
+ FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
+ errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
+
+taas COMMAND
+ Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
+ Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
+
+faas COMMAND
+ Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
+ Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
+
+tfaas COMMAND
+ Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
+ output).
+ Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
+
+maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
+maint show dwarf unwinders
+ Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
+
+info proc files
+ Display a list of open files for a process.
+
+* Changed commands
+
+Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
+ These commands all now take a frame specification which
+ is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
+ 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
+ address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
+ requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
+ unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
+
+target remote FILENAME
+target extended-remote FILENAME
+ If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
+ to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
+
+info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
+info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
+info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
+info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
+ These commands can now print only the searched entities
+ matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
+ on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
+ printing headers or informations messages.
+
+info functions
+info types
+info variables
+rbreak
+ These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
+ according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
+ `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
+ the shown entities.
+
+thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
+ The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
+ FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
+ errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
+
+set tui tab-width NCHARS
+show tui tab-width NCHARS
+ "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
+
+set style enabled [on|off]
+show style enabled
+ Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
+ on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
+
+set style sources [on|off]
+show style sources
+ Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
+ enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
+ enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
+
+set style filename foreground COLOR
+set style filename background COLOR
+set style filename intensity VALUE
+ Control the styling of file names.
+
+set style function foreground COLOR
+set style function background COLOR
+set style function intensity VALUE
+ Control the styling of function names.
+
+set style variable foreground COLOR
+set style variable background COLOR
+set style variable intensity VALUE
+ Control the styling of variable names.
+
+set style address foreground COLOR
+set style address background COLOR
+set style address intensity VALUE
+ Control the styling of addresses.
+
+* MI changes
+
+ ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
+
+ ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
+ disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
+ counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
+ verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
+ contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
+
+ ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
+ the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
+
+ ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
+ syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
+ the following commands and events:
+
+ - -break-insert
+ - -break-info
+ - =breakpoint-created
+ - =breakpoint-modified
+
+ The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
+ this behavior with previous MI versions.
+
+* New native configurations
+
+GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
+FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
+
+* New targets
+
+GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
+CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
+CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
+FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
+NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
+GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
+
+* Removed targets
+
+GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
+before Windows XP.
+
+* Python API
+
+ ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
+
+ ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
+ space associated to that inferior.
+
+ ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
+ of objfiles associated to that program space.
+
+ ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
+ gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
+ the gdb core.
+
+ ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
+ gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
+ correct and did not work properly.
+
+ ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
+ gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
+
+* Configure changes
+
+--enable-ubsan
+
+ Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
+ disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
+ --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
+ cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
+ first introduced in GCC 4.9.
+
+*** Changes in GDB 8.2
+
+* The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
+ for the MIPS target.
+
+* The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
+ offset to all sections.
+
+* Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
+ a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
+ address of individual sections using '-s'.
+
+* The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
+ (address of the text section).
+
+* The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
+ an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
+ either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
+ or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
+ default.
+
+* The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
+ for the rest of the current command.
+
+* The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
+ numbers of symbol definitions when available.
+
+* 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
+ files created on FreeBSD systems.
+
+* C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
+ alignof.
+
+* Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
+ the vector length while the process is running.
+
+* New commands
+
+set debug fbsd-nat
+show debug fbsd-nat
+ Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
+
+set|show varsize-limit
+ This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
+ objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
+ instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
+
+set|show record btrace cpu
+ Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
+ branch trace decode.
+
+maint check libthread-db
+ Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
+ library
+
+maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
+maint show check-libthread-db
+ Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
+ debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
+ perform such checks.
+
+* Python API
+
+ ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
+
+ ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
+ the breakpoint's "commands" field.
+
+ ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
+
+ ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
+ gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
+ of convenience variables.
+
+ ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
+ ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
+ the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
+
+* New targets
+
+RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
+
+* Removed targets and native configurations
+
+m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
+SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
+SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
+SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
+
+* Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
+
+ Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
+ supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
+ watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
+ lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
+ watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
+ the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
+ reported.
+
+* Configure changes
+
+--enable-codesign=CERT
+ This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
+ This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
+ gdb to work properly.
+
+--disable-gdbcli has been removed
+ This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
+
+*** Changes in GDB 8.1
+
+* GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
+ in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
+ registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
+
+* The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
+ offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
* New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
+* New command line options (gcore)
+
+-a
+ Dump all memory mappings.
+
* Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
- "B::func", only.
+ "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
+ gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
+ a breakpoint from Python.
* Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
description of these.
- ** A new command, "rbreak" has been added to the Python API. This
- command allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints via a
- regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
+ ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
+ This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
+ via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
+
+ ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
+ manual for a further description of this feature.
+
* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
in the *stopped notification.
+* Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
+ requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
+
* New remote packets
QEnvironmentHexEncoded
show debug separate-debug-file
Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
+set dump-excluded-mappings
+show dump-excluded-mappings
+ Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
+ dumped when generating a core file.
+
maint info selftests
List the registered selftests.
starti
Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
+set|show debug or1k
+ Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
+
+set|show print type nested-type-limit
+ Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
+ type printer will show.
+
* TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
`o' for nexti.
FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
+OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
* Removed targets and native configurations
List the shared libraries in the program. This is
equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
+-catch-handlers
+ Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
+ handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
+
*** Changes in GDB 7.12
* GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
* Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
+catch handlers
+ Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
+
* New remote packets
exec stop reason
projects / thirdparty / binutils-gdb.git / blobdiff