1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 10
6 * GDB now supports general memory tagging functionality if the underlying
7 architecture supports the proper primitives and hooks. Currently this is
8 enabled only for AArch64 MTE.
12 - Additional information when the inferior crashes with a SIGSEGV caused by
13 a memory tag violation.
15 - A new modifier 'm' for the "x" command, which displays allocation tags for a
16 particular memory range.
18 - Display of memory tag mismatches by "print", for addresses and
19 pointers, if memory tagging is supported by the architecture.
21 * Building GDB now requires GMP (The GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic
26 ** '-break-insert --qualified' and '-dprintf-insert --qualified'
28 The MI -break-insert and -dprintf-insert commands now support a
29 new "--qualified" option that makes GDB interpret a specified
30 function name as a complete fully-qualified name. This is the
31 equivalent of the CLI's "break -qualified" and "dprintf
34 * GDB now supports core file debugging for x86_64 Cygwin programs.
36 * GDB will now look for the .gdbinit file in a config directory before
37 looking for ~/.gdbinit. The file is searched for in the following
38 locations: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.config/gdb/gdbinit,
39 $HOME/.gdbinit. On Apple hosts the search order is instead:
40 $HOME/Library/Preferences/gdb/gdbinit, $HOME/.gdbinit.
42 * GDB now supports fixed point types which are described in DWARF
43 as base types with a fixed-point encoding. Additionally, support
44 for the DW_AT_GNU_numerator and DW_AT_GNU_denominator has also
47 For Ada, this allows support for fixed point types without requiring
48 the use of the GNAT encoding (based on information added to the type's
49 name following a GNAT-specific format).
51 * GDB will now load and process commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit
52 or ~/.gdbearlyinit if these files are present. These files are
53 processed earlier than any of the other initialization files and
54 can affect parts of GDB's startup that previously had already been
55 completed before the initialization files were read, for example
56 styling of the initial GDB greeting.
58 * GDB now has two new options "--early-init-command" and
59 "--early-init-eval-command" with corresponding short options "-eix"
60 and "-eiex" that allow options (that would normally appear in a
61 gdbearlyinit file) to be passed on the command line.
67 Control the display of debug output about GDB's event loop.
69 set print memory-tag-violations
70 show print memory-tag-violations
71 Control whether to display additional information about memory tag violations
72 when printing pointers and addresses. Architecture support for memory
73 tagging is required for this option to have an effect.
75 maintenance flush symbol-cache
76 maintenance flush register-cache
77 These new commands are equivalent to the already existing commands
78 'maintenance flush-symbol-cache' and 'flushregs' respectively.
80 maintenance flush dcache
81 A new command to flush the dcache.
83 maintenance info target-sections
84 Print GDB's internal target sections table.
86 memory-tag show-logical-tag POINTER
87 Print the logical tag for POINTER.
88 memory-tag with-logical-tag POINTER TAG
89 Print POINTER with logical tag TAG.
90 memory-tag show-allocation-tag ADDRESS
91 Print the allocation tag for ADDRESS.
92 memory-tag set-allocation-tag ADDRESS LENGTH TAGS
93 Set the allocation tag for [ADDRESS, ADDRESS + LENGTH) to TAGS.
94 memory-tag check POINTER
95 Validate that POINTER's logical tag matches the allocation tag.
97 set startup-quietly on|off
99 When 'on', this causes GDB to act as if "-silent" were passed on the
100 command line. This command needs to be added to an early
101 initialization file (e.g. ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit) in order to
104 set print type hex on|off
106 When 'on', the 'ptype' command uses hexadecimal notation to print sizes
107 and offsets of struct members. When 'off', decimal notation is used.
111 break [PROBE_MODIFIER] [LOCATION] [thread THREADNUM]
112 [-force-condition] [if CONDITION]
113 This command would previously refuse setting a breakpoint if the
114 CONDITION expression is invalid at a location. It now accepts and
115 defines the breakpoint if there is at least one location at which
116 the CONDITION is valid. The locations for which the CONDITION is
117 invalid, are automatically disabled. If CONDITION is invalid at all
118 of the locations, setting the breakpoint is still rejected. However,
119 the '-force-condition' flag can be used in this case for forcing GDB to
120 define the breakpoint, making all the current locations automatically
121 disabled. This may be useful if the user knows the condition will
122 become meaningful at a future location, e.g. due to a shared library
125 condition [-force] N COND
126 The behavior of this command is changed the same way for the 'break'
127 command as explained above. The '-force' flag can be used to force
128 GDB into defining the condition even when COND is invalid for all the
129 current locations of breakpoint N.
132 maintenance flush-symbol-cache
133 These commands are deprecated in favor of the new commands
134 'maintenance flush register-cache' and 'maintenance flush
135 symbol-cache' respectively.
137 set style version foreground COLOR
138 set style version background COLOR
139 set style version intensity VALUE
140 Control the styling of GDB's version number text.
143 When the ID parameter is omitted, then this command prints information
144 about the current inferior. When the ID parameter is present, the
145 behavior of the command is unchanged and have the inferior ID become
146 the current inferior.
148 maintenance info sections
149 The ALLOBJ keyword has been replaced with an -all-objects command
150 line flag. It is now possible to filter which sections are printed
151 even when -all-objects is passed.
153 ptype[/FLAGS] TYPE | EXPRESSION
154 The 'ptype' command has two new flags. When '/x' is set, hexadecimal
155 notation is used when printing sizes and offsets of struct members.
156 When '/d' is set, decimal notation is used when printing sizes and
157 offsets of struct members. Default behavior is given by 'show print
160 * Removed targets and native configurations
162 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
167 Request the remote to send allocation tags for a particular memory range.
169 Request the remote to store the specified allocation tags to the requested
172 *** Changes in GDB 10
174 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
175 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
176 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
179 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
180 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
181 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
182 and finally the description of the command.
184 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
185 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
187 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
188 debugging information as well as source code.
190 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
191 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
194 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
195 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
197 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
199 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
201 * Multi-target debugging support
203 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
204 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
205 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
206 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
207 debugging a core dump, etc.
209 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
210 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
211 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
212 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
213 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
214 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
216 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
218 ** GDBserver is now supported on ARC GNU/Linux.
220 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
222 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
233 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
235 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
236 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
238 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
239 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
240 performance for programs with many symbols.
242 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
243 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
245 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
247 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
248 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
249 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
250 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
253 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
258 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
259 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
260 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
261 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
262 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
263 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
264 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
265 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
266 attempt to detect a mismatch.
268 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
269 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
272 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
273 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
274 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
275 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
278 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
279 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
280 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
282 set debug fortran-array-slicing on|off
283 show debug fortran-array-slicing
284 Print debugging when taking slices of Fortran arrays.
286 set fortran repack-array-slices on|off
287 show fortran repack-array-slices
288 When taking slices from Fortran arrays and strings, if the slice is
289 non-contiguous within the original value then, when this option is
290 on, the new value will be repacked into a single contiguous value.
291 When this option is off, then the value returned will consist of a
292 descriptor that describes the slice within the memory of the
293 original parent value.
297 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
298 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
299 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
300 provided explicitly by the user.
301 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
303 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
304 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
305 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
306 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
307 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
308 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
312 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
317 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
320 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
321 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
322 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
325 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
326 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
328 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
329 architecture of the pending frame.
331 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
332 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
333 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
334 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
336 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
337 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
338 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
339 discover the available register groups.
343 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
345 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
346 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
347 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
348 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
349 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
353 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
355 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
356 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
357 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
358 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
359 such as in system-wide init files.
361 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
362 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
363 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
364 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
365 current GDB settings.
367 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
368 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
369 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
370 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
372 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
373 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
376 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
377 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
379 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
380 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
381 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
383 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
384 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
387 * Command names can now use the . character.
389 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
391 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
394 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
396 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
397 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
399 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
400 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
401 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
403 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
405 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
406 not visible in the current scope.
408 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
409 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
410 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
411 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
412 compiled with support for that language.
414 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
415 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
416 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
420 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
421 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
422 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
423 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
424 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
426 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
429 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
430 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
431 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
434 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
435 symbols with static linkage.
437 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
438 all static symbols with static linkage.
440 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
441 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
443 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
444 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
448 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
449 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
450 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
451 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
452 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
453 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
454 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
456 define-prefix COMMAND
457 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
459 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
460 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
461 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
462 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
463 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
464 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
465 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
466 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
467 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
468 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
469 of array elements to print.
471 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
472 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
474 set may-call-functions [on|off]
475 show may-call-functions
476 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
477 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
478 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
479 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
480 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
481 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
484 set print finish [on|off]
486 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
487 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
488 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
493 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
494 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
495 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
496 the old behavior back.
498 set print raw-values [on|off]
499 show print raw-values
500 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
501 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
502 of commands. The default is 'off'.
504 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
505 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
506 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
508 set style title foreground COLOR
509 set style title background COLOR
510 set style title intensity VALUE
511 Control the styling of titles.
513 set style highlight foreground COLOR
514 set style highlight background COLOR
515 set style highlight intensity VALUE
516 Control the styling of highlightings.
518 maint set worker-threads
519 maint show worker-threads
520 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
521 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
522 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
523 the names of linker symbols.
525 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
526 set style tui-border background COLOR
527 Control the styling of TUI borders.
529 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
530 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
531 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
533 maint set test-settings KIND
534 maint show test-settings KIND
535 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
538 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
539 maint show tui-resize-message
540 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
541 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
544 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
545 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
546 show print frame-info
547 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
548 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
549 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
550 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
552 set tui compact-source
553 show tui compact-source
555 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
556 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
557 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
558 line numbers from the source.
560 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
561 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
564 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
565 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
566 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
567 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
568 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
569 matches against the function name.
571 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
572 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
573 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
574 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
575 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
576 against the variable name.
578 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
579 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
580 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
582 The default is 512 bytes.
585 Lists the target connections currently in use.
590 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
591 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
595 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
596 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
597 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
598 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
599 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
603 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
604 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
605 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
606 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
608 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
609 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
610 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
611 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
615 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
616 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
617 the user visualize the different styles.
619 set print frame-arguments
620 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
621 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
623 set print raw-frame-arguments
624 show print raw-frame-arguments
626 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
627 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
628 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
631 add-inferior [-no-connection]
632 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
633 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
634 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
635 current inferior. See also "info connections".
638 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
639 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
640 "info connections" above.
642 maint test-options require-delimiter
643 maint test-options unknown-is-error
644 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
645 maint show test-options-completion-result
646 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
649 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
650 These commands are now case-sensitive.
652 * New command options, command completion
654 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
655 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
656 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
657 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
658 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
659 number of commands got support for new command options in this
662 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
663 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
664 set by "set print" subcommands:
668 -array-indexes [on|off]
669 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
674 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
675 -static-members [on|off]
680 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
681 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
682 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
683 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
685 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
686 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
687 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
689 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
690 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
691 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
692 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
693 |location-and-address|short-location
697 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
698 exposed as command options too:
704 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
705 support the following options:
710 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
711 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
713 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
714 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
715 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
718 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
720 The above is equivalent to:
722 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
724 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
725 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
726 variables" and "info functions".
728 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
729 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
730 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
733 * Completion improvements
735 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
736 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
739 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
740 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
743 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
744 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
745 completes on filenames.
747 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
748 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
750 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
752 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
758 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
759 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
760 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
762 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
763 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
764 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
766 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
767 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
768 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
770 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
773 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
774 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
775 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
779 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
781 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
782 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
783 the following commands and events:
787 - =breakpoint-created
788 - =breakpoint-modified
790 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
791 this behavior with previous MI versions.
793 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
794 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
795 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
800 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
801 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
802 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
803 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
805 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
807 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
808 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
810 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
812 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
813 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
815 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
816 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
817 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
819 * Removed targets and native configurations
821 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
822 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
823 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
829 * Removed targets and native configurations
831 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
834 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
836 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
837 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
840 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
841 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
842 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
845 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
848 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
849 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
850 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
852 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
853 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
855 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
856 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
857 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
858 in the GDB user manual.
860 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
863 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
865 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
866 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
867 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
868 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
869 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
870 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
871 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
872 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
873 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
874 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
875 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
876 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
878 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
879 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
880 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
883 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
888 set debug compile-cplus-types
889 show debug compile-cplus-types
890 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
891 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
896 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
899 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
900 Apply a command to some frames.
901 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
902 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
905 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
906 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
909 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
910 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
913 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
915 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
917 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
918 maint show dwarf unwinders
919 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
922 Display a list of open files for a process.
926 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
927 These commands all now take a frame specification which
928 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
929 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
930 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
931 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
932 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
934 target remote FILENAME
935 target extended-remote FILENAME
936 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
937 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
939 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
940 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
941 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
942 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
943 These commands can now print only the searched entities
944 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
945 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
946 printing headers or informations messages.
952 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
953 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
954 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
957 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
958 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
959 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
960 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
962 set tui tab-width NCHARS
963 show tui tab-width NCHARS
964 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
966 set style enabled [on|off]
968 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
969 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
971 set style sources [on|off]
973 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
974 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
975 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
977 set style filename foreground COLOR
978 set style filename background COLOR
979 set style filename intensity VALUE
980 Control the styling of file names.
982 set style function foreground COLOR
983 set style function background COLOR
984 set style function intensity VALUE
985 Control the styling of function names.
987 set style variable foreground COLOR
988 set style variable background COLOR
989 set style variable intensity VALUE
990 Control the styling of variable names.
992 set style address foreground COLOR
993 set style address background COLOR
994 set style address intensity VALUE
995 Control the styling of addresses.
999 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
1000 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
1001 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
1002 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
1003 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
1005 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
1006 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
1008 * New native configurations
1010 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1011 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1015 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
1016 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
1017 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
1018 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
1020 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
1024 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
1029 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
1031 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
1032 space associated to that inferior.
1034 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
1035 of objfiles associated to that program space.
1037 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
1038 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
1041 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
1042 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
1043 correct and did not work properly.
1045 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
1046 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
1052 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
1053 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
1054 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
1055 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
1056 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
1058 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
1060 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
1061 for the MIPS target.
1063 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
1064 offset to all sections.
1066 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
1067 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
1068 address of individual sections using '-s'.
1070 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
1071 (address of the text section).
1073 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
1074 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
1075 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
1076 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
1079 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
1080 for the rest of the current command.
1082 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
1083 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
1085 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
1086 files created on FreeBSD systems.
1088 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
1091 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
1092 the vector length while the process is running.
1098 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
1100 set|show varsize-limit
1101 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
1102 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
1103 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
1105 set|show record btrace cpu
1106 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
1107 branch trace decode.
1109 maint check libthread-db
1110 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
1113 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
1114 maint show check-libthread-db
1115 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
1116 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
1117 perform such checks.
1121 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
1123 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
1124 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
1126 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
1128 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
1129 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
1130 of convenience variables.
1132 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
1133 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
1134 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
1138 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
1140 * Removed targets and native configurations
1142 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
1143 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
1144 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
1145 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
1147 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
1149 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
1150 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
1151 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
1152 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
1153 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
1154 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
1159 --enable-codesign=CERT
1160 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
1161 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
1162 gdb to work properly.
1164 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
1165 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
1167 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
1169 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
1170 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
1171 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
1173 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
1174 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
1176 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
1177 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
1178 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
1179 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
1180 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1182 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1183 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1184 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1185 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1187 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1188 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1190 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1191 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1192 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1194 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1195 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1196 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1198 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1199 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1200 environment" command.
1202 * Completion improvements
1204 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1205 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1206 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1207 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1210 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1211 (gdb) b function(int)
1213 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1214 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1217 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1218 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1219 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1221 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1222 completion support, that better understands what you're
1223 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1224 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1225 setting a breakpoint.
1227 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1229 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1231 * New command line options (gcore)
1234 Dump all memory mappings.
1236 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1238 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1239 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1240 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1242 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1247 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1250 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1251 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1252 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1253 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1254 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1255 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1256 a breakpoint from Python.
1258 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1260 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1261 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1262 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1264 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1266 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1269 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1272 (gdb) b function(int)
1274 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1276 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1278 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1282 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1283 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1284 description of these.
1286 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1287 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1288 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1290 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1291 manual for a further description of this feature.
1294 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1296 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1297 specified initial working directory.
1299 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1300 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1302 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1303 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1305 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1306 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1308 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1309 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1310 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1311 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1312 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1314 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1315 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1316 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1318 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1319 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1320 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1321 in the *stopped notification.
1323 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1324 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1326 * New remote packets
1328 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1329 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1330 the inferior when starting it.
1333 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1334 before starting the remote inferior.
1337 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1338 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1341 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1344 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1347 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1348 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1350 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1351 filter the tests to be run.
1353 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1354 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1359 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1361 set|show compile-gcc
1362 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1363 with the 'compile' commands.
1365 set debug separate-debug-file
1366 show debug separate-debug-file
1367 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1369 set dump-excluded-mappings
1370 show dump-excluded-mappings
1371 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1372 dumped when generating a core file.
1374 maint info selftests
1375 List the registered selftests.
1378 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
1381 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
1383 set|show print type nested-type-limit
1384 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
1385 type printer will show.
1387 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
1390 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
1392 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
1395 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
1396 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
1397 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
1398 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
1400 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
1401 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
1402 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
1403 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1404 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
1405 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1407 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
1408 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
1409 unless you tell it the variable's type:
1412 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
1416 * New native configurations
1418 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1419 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1423 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1424 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1425 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
1427 * Removed targets and native configurations
1429 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
1431 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
1433 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
1434 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
1435 available in future Intel CPUs.
1437 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
1441 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
1442 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
1444 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
1447 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
1449 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
1451 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
1452 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1455 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1457 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1458 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1460 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1462 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1463 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1464 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1465 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1468 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1470 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1471 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1474 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1476 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1477 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1479 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1481 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1486 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1491 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1493 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1494 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1496 * New native configurations
1498 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1502 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1503 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1505 * Removed targets and native configurations
1507 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1508 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1513 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1515 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1516 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1520 set disassembler-options
1521 show disassembler-options
1522 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1523 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1524 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1525 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1526 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1531 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1532 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1534 -file-list-shared-libraries
1535 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1536 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1539 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1540 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1542 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1544 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1546 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1547 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1548 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1549 option will be removed in a future release.
1551 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1554 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1555 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1558 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1559 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1560 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1561 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1562 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1563 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1564 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1565 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1566 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1568 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1569 arrays of dynamic types.
1571 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1572 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1573 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1574 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1575 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1576 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1578 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1581 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1582 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1583 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1585 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1587 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1588 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1589 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1590 signal received and code location.
1594 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1595 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1596 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1597 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1599 * Rust language support.
1600 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1601 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1604 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1606 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1607 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1608 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1609 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1610 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1611 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1612 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1613 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1614 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1615 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1618 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1620 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1621 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1626 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1627 skip -function function
1628 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1629 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1630 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1631 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1633 maint info line-table REGEXP
1634 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
1637 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1640 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1641 using the TTY file for input/output.
1645 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1646 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1647 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1648 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1649 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1651 signal-event EVENTID
1652 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1653 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1654 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1655 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1656 signalling an event.
1658 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1659 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1660 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1662 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1665 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1666 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1667 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1668 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1669 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1670 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1672 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1673 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1674 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1675 bytecode into native code.
1677 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1678 recording. For example:
1680 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1682 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1684 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1688 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1690 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1692 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1694 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1696 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1697 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1698 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1702 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1703 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1704 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1705 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1707 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1708 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1709 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1711 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1712 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1713 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1715 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1718 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1719 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1722 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1725 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1726 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1727 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1728 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1731 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1734 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1737 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1740 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1741 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1744 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1745 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1747 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1749 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1751 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1752 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1754 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1755 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1758 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1759 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1762 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1763 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1766 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1768 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1769 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1770 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1772 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1773 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1777 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1778 maint show target-non-stop
1779 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1780 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1781 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1783 maint set bfd-sharing
1784 maint show bfd-sharing
1785 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1788 show debug bfd-cache
1789 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1793 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1795 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1796 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1797 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1799 set remote thread-events
1800 show remote thread-events
1801 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1803 set ada print-signatures on|off
1804 show ada print-signatures"
1805 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1806 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
1810 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1811 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1812 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1814 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1815 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1816 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1817 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1818 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1819 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1821 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1822 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1824 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1825 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1827 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1829 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1830 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1831 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1832 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1833 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1834 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1836 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1837 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1840 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1842 * New remote packets
1845 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1847 exec-events feature in qSupported
1848 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1849 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1850 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1851 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1854 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1857 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1858 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1860 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1861 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1864 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1865 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1866 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1867 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1868 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1869 stop for that same thread.
1872 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1873 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1874 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1877 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1878 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1880 syscall_entry stop reason
1881 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1883 syscall_return stop reason
1884 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1886 * Extended-remote exec events
1888 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1889 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1890 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1892 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1893 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1894 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1896 * Thread names in remote protocol
1898 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1901 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1903 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1904 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1905 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1906 fork and exec catchpoints.
1908 * Remote syscall events
1910 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1911 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1913 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1914 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1915 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1919 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1920 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1925 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1926 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1927 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1928 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1929 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1930 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1932 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1934 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1935 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1936 including advance SIMD instructions.
1938 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1940 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1941 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1942 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1943 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1944 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1945 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1946 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1948 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1950 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1952 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1953 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1956 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1957 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1958 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1960 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1961 is now available on all platforms.
1963 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1964 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1965 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1966 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1967 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1968 backward compatibility.
1970 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1971 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1972 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1973 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1975 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1976 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1977 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1978 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1981 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1983 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1985 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1986 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1987 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1988 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1989 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1990 See "New remote packets" below.
1992 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1993 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1995 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1996 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1997 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1998 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
2003 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
2007 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
2008 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
2009 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
2010 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
2011 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
2012 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
2013 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
2014 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
2015 "const" version of the value respectively.
2019 maint print symbol-cache
2020 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
2022 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
2023 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
2025 maint flush-symbol-cache
2026 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
2030 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
2033 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
2037 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
2040 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
2041 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
2045 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
2048 Print information about branch tracing internals.
2050 maint btrace packet-history
2051 Print the raw branch tracing data.
2053 maint btrace clear-packet-history
2054 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
2057 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
2058 anew by the next "record" command.
2063 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
2064 show debug dwarf-die
2065 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
2067 set debug dwarf-read
2068 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
2069 show debug dwarf-read
2070 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
2072 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
2073 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2074 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
2075 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
2077 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
2078 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2079 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
2080 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
2082 set debug dwarf-line
2083 show debug dwarf-line
2084 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
2087 show max-completions
2088 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
2089 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
2090 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
2091 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
2093 set history remove-duplicates
2094 show history remove-duplicates
2095 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
2097 maint set symbol-cache-size
2098 maint show symbol-cache-size
2099 Control the size of the symbol cache.
2101 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
2102 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2104 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2105 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2107 set debug linux-namespaces
2108 show debug linux-namespaces
2109 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
2111 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
2112 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
2113 Intel Processor Trace format.
2114 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
2115 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
2117 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
2118 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
2121 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
2122 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
2124 * Python/Guile scripting
2126 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
2127 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
2129 * New remote packets
2131 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
2132 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
2134 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
2135 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
2138 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
2139 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
2142 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
2143 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
2147 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
2148 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
2149 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
2153 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
2154 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
2157 Return information about files on the remote system.
2159 qXfer:exec-file:read
2160 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
2161 create a process running on the remote system.
2164 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
2165 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
2166 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
2167 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
2170 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
2173 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
2175 vforkdone stop reason
2176 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
2177 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
2179 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
2180 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2181 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2182 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2183 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2184 whether these features are enabled.
2186 * Extended-remote fork events
2188 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2189 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2190 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2191 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2193 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2194 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2195 the btrace record target.
2196 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2198 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2199 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2201 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2204 * Removed command line options
2206 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2208 * Removed targets and native configurations
2210 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2211 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2213 * New configure options
2216 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2217 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2219 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2220 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2221 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2222 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2224 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2228 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2230 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2232 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2236 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2237 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2238 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2239 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2240 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2241 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2242 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2243 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2244 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2245 selecting a new file to debug.
2246 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2247 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2249 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2252 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2253 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2254 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2255 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2257 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2259 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2260 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2261 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2262 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2264 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2265 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2266 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2267 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2268 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2269 interface with this new feature are:
2271 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2272 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2276 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2277 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2278 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2279 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2280 as "maint demangler-warning".
2282 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2283 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2285 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2286 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2289 maint print user-registers
2290 List all currently available "user" registers.
2292 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2293 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2294 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2296 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2297 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2298 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2301 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2302 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2303 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2304 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2307 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2308 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2309 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2310 switched threads meanwhile.
2312 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2314 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2315 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2316 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2317 is now the default mode.
2321 set debug symbol-lookup
2322 show debug symbol-lookup
2323 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2327 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2328 inferiors that have exited.
2332 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2336 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2338 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2339 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2340 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2341 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2342 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2344 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2345 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2346 its alias "share", instead.
2348 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2350 * New command line options
2353 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2355 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2356 as specified in ISO C99.
2358 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2359 with or without disassembly.
2363 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2364 available is determined at configure time.
2365 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2366 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2368 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2372 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2376 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
2378 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
2379 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
2381 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
2382 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
2386 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
2387 show print symbol-loading
2388 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
2389 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
2390 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
2391 becomes less useful.
2393 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
2394 show guile print-stack
2395 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
2397 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
2398 show auto-load guile-scripts
2399 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
2401 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
2402 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
2403 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
2404 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
2405 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
2406 usage of this option.
2408 set auto-connect-native-target
2410 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
2411 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
2412 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
2414 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
2415 show record btrace replay-memory-access
2416 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
2418 maint set target-async (on|off)
2419 maint show target-async
2420 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
2421 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
2422 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
2423 occurring only in synchronous mode.
2425 set mi-async (on|off)
2427 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
2428 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
2430 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
2431 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
2433 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
2434 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
2435 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
2436 "set target-async on" command.
2438 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2440 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
2441 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
2442 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
2443 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
2444 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
2446 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
2447 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
2448 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
2450 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
2451 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
2452 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2453 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2454 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2455 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2456 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2458 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2459 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2461 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2462 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2463 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2465 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2466 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2467 memory or registers.
2469 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2471 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2472 remote. It now works with all targets.
2474 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2475 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2476 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2477 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2478 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2479 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2480 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2481 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2482 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2485 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2486 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2487 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2489 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2491 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2492 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2493 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2495 * New remote packets
2497 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2498 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2499 branch trace incrementally.
2503 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2504 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2506 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2507 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2508 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2509 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2510 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2513 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2515 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2516 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2517 its alias "share", instead.
2519 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2520 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2525 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2526 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2527 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2528 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2529 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2530 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2531 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2532 commands and CLI execution commands.
2534 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2536 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2537 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2538 recording has been added.
2540 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2542 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2543 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2545 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2546 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2547 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2548 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2549 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2550 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2553 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2555 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2557 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2558 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2559 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2560 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2565 (gdb) info registers rax
2568 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2569 "*value not available*".
2571 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2576 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2577 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2578 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2579 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2580 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2581 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2585 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2586 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2587 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2589 * Removed native configurations
2591 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2592 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2594 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2595 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2596 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2597 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2598 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2599 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2600 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2604 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2605 maint check-psymtabs
2606 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2608 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2609 maint expand-symtabs
2610 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2613 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2615 maint set|show per-command
2616 maint set|show per-command space
2617 maint set|show per-command time
2618 maint set|show per-command symtab
2619 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2621 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2622 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2623 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2624 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2625 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2628 info exceptions REGEXP
2629 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2630 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2635 set debug symfile off|on
2637 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2638 symbol tables within those files
2640 set print raw frame-arguments
2641 show print raw frame-arguments
2642 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2643 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2645 set remote trace-status-packet
2646 show remote trace-status-packet
2647 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2651 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2655 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2657 set startup-with-shell
2658 show startup-with-shell
2659 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2664 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2665 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2667 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2668 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2669 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2670 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2673 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2674 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2675 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2677 * New command-line options
2679 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2681 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2682 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2684 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2687 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2689 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2690 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2692 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2693 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2695 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2696 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2697 due to an uncaught signal.
2701 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2702 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2703 command, which should contain "language-option".
2705 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2706 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2708 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2709 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2710 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2711 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2712 "undefined-command-error-code".
2714 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2717 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2719 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2720 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2723 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2724 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2726 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2727 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2728 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2730 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2731 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2732 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2733 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2734 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2735 "exec-run-start-option".
2737 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2738 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2740 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2741 the new "info exceptions" command.
2743 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2744 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2745 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2749 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2750 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2751 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2754 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2755 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2757 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2758 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2759 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2761 * New remote packets
2765 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2766 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2767 involvemement at each single-step.
2769 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2770 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2771 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2772 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2773 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2774 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2777 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2779 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2780 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2782 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2783 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2784 trace state variables.
2786 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2789 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2790 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2792 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2794 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2795 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2796 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2797 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2799 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2801 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2802 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2803 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2804 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2806 set|show record full insn-number-max
2807 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2808 set|show record full memory-query
2810 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2811 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2812 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2813 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2814 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2818 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2819 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2821 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2822 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2823 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2825 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2826 instruction granularity
2828 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2829 function granularity
2831 * New native configurations
2833 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2834 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2835 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2836 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2840 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2841 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2842 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2843 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2844 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2846 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2847 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2848 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2849 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2850 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2851 --data-directory command-line option.
2853 * New command line options:
2855 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2856 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2858 * Removed command line options
2860 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2863 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2866 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2870 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2872 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2874 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2876 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2878 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2879 of architecture in the Python API.
2881 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2882 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2884 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2886 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2887 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2889 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2891 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2894 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2895 default for GCC since November 2000.
2897 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2899 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2900 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2902 * New configure options
2904 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2905 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2906 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2907 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2908 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2909 options allow the user to override that default.
2910 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2911 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2912 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2914 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2917 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2918 conditions to be attached.
2921 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2923 python-interactive [command]
2925 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2926 and print the result of expressions.
2929 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2931 enable type-printer [name]...
2932 disable type-printer [name]...
2933 Enable or disable type printers.
2937 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2938 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2943 set print type methods (on|off)
2944 show print type methods
2945 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2946 The default is to show them.
2948 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2949 show print type typedefs
2950 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2951 The default is to show them.
2953 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2954 show filename-display
2955 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2956 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2958 set trace-buffer-size
2959 show trace-buffer-size
2960 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2962 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2963 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2964 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2968 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2971 set debug coff-pe-read
2972 show debug coff-pe-read
2973 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2978 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2981 set debug notification
2982 show debug notification
2983 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2987 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2988 "=cmd-param-changed".
2989 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2990 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2991 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2992 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2993 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2994 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2995 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2996 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2998 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2999 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
3000 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
3001 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3002 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
3003 library load/unload events.
3004 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
3005 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
3006 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
3007 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
3008 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
3009 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
3010 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
3011 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
3013 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
3014 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
3015 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
3016 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
3018 * New remote packets
3021 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
3022 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3025 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
3026 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
3030 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
3031 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3034 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
3035 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
3037 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
3039 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
3040 for more x32 ABI info.
3042 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
3044 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
3046 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
3047 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
3048 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
3049 "info os files" lists file descriptors
3050 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
3051 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
3052 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
3053 "info os msg" lists message queues
3054 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
3056 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
3057 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
3058 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
3059 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
3060 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
3061 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
3063 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
3064 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
3065 record/replay support.
3067 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
3071 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
3074 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
3076 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
3077 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
3079 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
3081 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
3082 the source at which the symbol was defined.
3084 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
3085 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
3086 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
3089 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
3090 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
3092 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
3093 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
3094 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
3096 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
3097 object associated with a PC value.
3099 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
3100 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
3102 * Go language support.
3103 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
3106 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
3107 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
3109 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
3110 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
3112 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
3113 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
3114 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
3115 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
3116 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
3119 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
3120 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
3121 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
3122 build/libcpp/expr.c.
3124 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
3125 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
3127 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
3128 since December 2007.
3130 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
3131 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
3132 command does. For instance:
3134 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
3136 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
3137 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
3138 created, using the "condition" command.
3140 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
3141 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
3143 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
3145 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
3146 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
3147 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
3148 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
3149 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
3150 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
3151 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
3152 files with older .gdb_index sections.
3154 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
3155 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
3156 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
3157 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
3158 the .gdb_index section.
3160 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
3162 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
3167 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
3169 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
3173 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3174 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
3175 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
3177 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
3178 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
3180 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3183 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3184 C++ and Java objects.
3186 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3187 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3188 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3189 configured with '--with-python'.
3191 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3192 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3193 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3194 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3195 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3196 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3197 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3199 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3200 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3201 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3202 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3204 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3205 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3206 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3207 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3209 ** "set print symbol"
3211 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3212 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3213 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3215 * Deprecated commands
3217 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3218 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3222 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3223 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3225 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3226 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3227 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3228 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3233 set mips compression
3234 show mips compression
3235 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3236 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3239 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3241 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3242 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3243 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3244 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3246 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3250 Disable auto-loading globally.
3253 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3255 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3256 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3257 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3259 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3260 show auto-load python-scripts
3261 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3263 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3264 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3265 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3267 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3268 show auto-load libthread-db
3269 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3271 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3272 show auto-load scripts-directory
3273 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3274 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3275 of the directories listed by this option.
3276 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3278 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3279 show auto-load safe-path
3280 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3281 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3283 set debug auto-load on|off
3284 show debug auto-load
3285 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3287 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3289 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3290 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3291 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3292 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3294 set dprintf-function <expr>
3295 show dprintf-function
3296 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3297 show dprintf-channel
3298 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3299 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3301 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3302 show disconnected-dprintf
3303 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3304 after GDB disconnects.
3306 * New configure options
3308 --with-auto-load-dir
3309 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3310 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3311 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3312 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3313 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3315 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3316 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3317 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3319 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3320 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3323 * New remote packets
3325 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3327 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3328 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3329 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3330 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3334 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3335 program without GDB involvement.
3337 * New command line options
3339 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3340 before loading inferior.
3341 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3342 execute it before loading inferior.
3344 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3346 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3347 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3348 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3349 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3352 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3353 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3355 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3356 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3357 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3358 target hardware watchpoint.
3360 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3361 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3362 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3363 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3367 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3368 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3371 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3372 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3373 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
3374 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
3375 now "message", which just prints the error message without
3378 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3381 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
3382 modules library. This module provides functionality for
3383 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
3384 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
3385 corresponding value.
3387 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
3388 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
3389 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
3392 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
3393 static_block will return the global and static blocks
3394 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
3395 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
3397 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
3399 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
3402 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
3403 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
3404 available in the CLI.
3406 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
3407 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
3408 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
3409 "some_type.items()".
3411 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
3414 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
3415 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
3416 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
3417 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
3418 any anonymous fields.
3422 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
3425 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
3426 "=breakpoint-modified".
3428 ** New command -ada-task-info.
3430 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
3431 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
3432 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
3435 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
3436 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
3437 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
3438 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
3439 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
3441 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
3442 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
3444 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
3445 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
3446 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
3447 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
3448 use this option to specify where to find it.
3450 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3451 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
3452 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3453 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3454 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3455 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3456 section in the user manual for more details.
3458 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3459 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3460 become available after that.
3462 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3464 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3465 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3471 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3472 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3476 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3477 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3478 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3480 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3481 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3482 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3484 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3485 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3486 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3487 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3488 name starts with a hyphen.
3490 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3491 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3492 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3493 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3494 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3495 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3496 number of bytes that will be collected.
3499 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3500 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3501 setting the variable trace-notes.
3504 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3505 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3506 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3509 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3510 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3511 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3512 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3513 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3516 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3517 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3518 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3522 set debug dwarf2-read
3523 show debug dwarf2-read
3524 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3525 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3527 set debug symtab-create
3528 show debug symtab-create
3529 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3530 creation. The default is off.
3533 show extended-prompt
3534 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3535 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3536 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3537 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3538 prompt is displayed.
3540 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3541 show print entry-values
3542 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3543 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3544 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3546 set debug entry-values
3547 show debug entry-values
3548 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3549 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3551 set basenames-may-differ
3552 show basenames-may-differ
3553 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3554 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3555 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3556 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3557 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3558 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3559 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3560 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3566 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3567 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3568 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3569 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3571 set trace-stop-notes
3572 show trace-stop-notes
3573 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3574 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3575 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3576 started by someone else.
3578 * New remote packets
3582 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3586 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3590 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3594 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3598 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3601 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3602 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3606 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3610 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3612 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3614 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3616 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3618 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3619 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3620 matches the given regular expression.
3622 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3624 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3625 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3627 * New command line options
3629 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3630 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3632 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3633 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3635 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3636 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3637 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3639 * GDB now understands thread names.
3641 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3642 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3644 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3645 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3648 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3649 has been integrated into GDB.
3653 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3654 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3655 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3657 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3658 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3659 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3660 and allows for more dynamic content.
3662 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3663 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3664 have an is_valid method.
3666 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3667 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3668 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3670 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3672 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3673 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3674 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3675 that function like so:
3677 result = some_value (10,20)
3679 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3680 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3681 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3683 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3684 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3685 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3686 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3687 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3689 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3690 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3692 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3694 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3697 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3698 holds the thread's name.
3700 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3701 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3702 occurring in the process being debugged.
3703 The following events are currently supported:
3704 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3705 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3706 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3710 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3711 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3713 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3715 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3716 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3717 was added to GCC 4.5.
3719 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3720 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3721 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3722 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3723 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3724 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3726 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3727 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3728 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3729 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3730 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3732 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3733 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3734 execution to a label.
3736 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3737 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3738 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3739 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3741 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3742 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3743 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3746 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3748 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3749 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3750 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3751 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3752 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3753 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3756 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3758 While now you see this:
3761 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3763 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3766 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3767 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3768 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3769 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3771 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3772 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3773 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3774 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3775 section in the user manual for more details.
3777 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3779 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3780 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3782 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3784 * New native configurations
3786 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3790 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3792 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3793 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3794 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3795 in the GDB user manual.
3797 * Guile support was removed.
3799 * New features in the GNU simulator
3801 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3803 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3805 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3807 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3809 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3810 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3811 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3812 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3813 was always disabled for such configurations.
3817 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3819 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3820 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3830 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3831 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3832 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3834 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3836 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3837 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3838 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3839 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3841 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3842 mentioned flavors of operators.
3844 ** static const class members
3846 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3847 class definition has been fixed.
3849 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3851 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3852 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3853 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3854 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3855 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3856 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3858 * Static tracepoints
3860 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3861 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3862 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3863 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3864 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3865 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3866 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3867 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3868 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3869 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3870 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3871 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3872 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3873 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3874 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3875 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3876 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3877 the "New remote packets" section below.
3879 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3881 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3882 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3883 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3884 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3888 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3889 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3890 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3891 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3892 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3893 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3894 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3896 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3899 * New remote packets
3903 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3907 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3908 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3909 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3910 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3911 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3912 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3916 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3920 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3923 qXfer:statictrace:read
3925 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3926 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3927 to gdb's qSupported query.
3931 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3935 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3936 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3938 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3939 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3942 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3944 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3945 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3946 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3947 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3949 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3950 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3951 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3952 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3953 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3954 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3955 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3957 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3958 for static tracepoints support.
3960 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3962 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3963 it understands register description.
3965 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3967 * X86 general purpose registers
3969 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3970 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3971 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3972 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3973 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3975 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3976 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3977 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3978 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3979 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3980 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3982 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3983 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3984 in the specified file.
3986 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3987 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3988 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3989 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3990 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3991 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3992 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3993 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3994 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3995 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3999 eval template, expressions...
4000 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
4001 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
4003 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
4004 show target-file-system-kind
4005 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
4008 save breakpoints <filename>
4009 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
4010 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
4011 definitions, use the `source' command.
4013 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
4016 info static-tracepoint-markers
4017 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
4019 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
4020 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
4021 function, line, address, or marker ID.
4025 Enable and disable observer mode.
4027 set may-write-registers on|off
4028 set may-write-memory on|off
4029 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
4030 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
4031 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
4032 set may-interrupt on|off
4033 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
4034 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
4035 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
4036 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
4037 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
4038 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
4039 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
4041 set record memory-query on|off
4042 show record memory-query
4043 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
4044 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
4049 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
4053 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
4054 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
4055 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
4056 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
4057 GDB using Python' in the manual.
4059 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
4060 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
4061 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
4062 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
4064 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
4065 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
4067 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
4069 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
4071 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
4073 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
4074 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
4075 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
4077 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
4078 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
4079 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
4080 regular breakpoints.
4084 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
4086 * D language support.
4087 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
4090 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
4091 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
4092 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
4093 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
4094 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
4096 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
4097 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
4098 conditions of the form:
4100 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
4102 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
4103 interface mentioned above.
4105 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
4109 ** Namespace Support
4111 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
4112 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
4113 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
4114 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
4115 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
4119 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
4120 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
4125 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
4126 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
4130 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
4135 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
4138 * Multi-program debugging.
4140 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
4141 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
4142 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
4143 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
4144 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
4145 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
4146 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
4147 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
4149 * New tracing features
4151 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
4153 ** Trace state variables
4155 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
4156 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
4157 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
4158 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
4159 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
4160 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
4161 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
4162 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
4163 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
4164 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
4168 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
4169 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
4170 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
4171 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
4172 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
4173 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
4174 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
4175 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
4176 the regular trace command.
4178 ** Disconnected tracing
4180 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4181 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4182 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4183 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4184 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4188 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4189 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4190 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4191 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4192 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4193 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4196 ** Circular trace buffer
4198 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4199 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4200 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4201 not be available for all target agents.
4206 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4207 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4210 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4211 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4214 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4215 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4218 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4219 "set script-extension" (see below).
4221 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4223 record save [<FILENAME>]
4224 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4225 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4227 record restore <FILENAME>
4228 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4229 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4231 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4234 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4235 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4236 inferior has loaded.
4241 maint info program-spaces
4242 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4244 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4245 show remote interrupt-sequence
4246 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4247 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4248 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4249 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4250 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4252 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4253 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4254 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4255 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4258 set remotebreak [on | off]
4260 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4262 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4263 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4266 List trace state variables and their values.
4268 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4269 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4272 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4273 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4275 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4276 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4278 * New expression syntax
4280 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4281 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4285 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4286 show follow-exec-mode
4287 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4288 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4289 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4291 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4292 show default-collect
4293 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4294 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4295 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4297 set disconnected-tracing
4298 show disconnected-tracing
4299 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4300 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4303 set circular-trace-buffer
4304 show circular-trace-buffer
4305 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4306 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4307 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4308 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4310 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4311 show script-extension
4312 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4313 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4314 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4315 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4317 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4319 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4320 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4321 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4322 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4323 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4324 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4325 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4328 * Python API Improvements
4330 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4331 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4332 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4334 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4335 `is_base_class' attribute.
4337 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4339 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4340 evaluate an expression.
4342 * New remote packets
4345 Define a trace state variable.
4348 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4351 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4354 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4357 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4361 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4363 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4364 much more reliable. In particular:
4365 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4366 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4367 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4368 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4369 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4370 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4371 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4372 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4373 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
4374 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
4375 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
4376 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
4377 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
4378 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
4379 non-threaded programs.
4381 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
4382 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
4383 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
4386 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
4388 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
4389 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
4390 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
4391 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
4392 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
4394 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
4395 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
4396 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
4397 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
4398 for tracepoint actions.
4400 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
4401 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
4402 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
4404 * Process record and replay
4406 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
4407 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
4408 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
4411 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
4412 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
4413 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
4416 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
4417 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4420 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
4421 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
4422 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
4423 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
4424 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
4425 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
4426 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
4427 the installation instructions for more information.
4429 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
4430 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
4431 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
4432 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
4434 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
4435 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
4437 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
4438 now complete on file names.
4440 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
4441 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
4442 For instance, consider:
4444 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
4445 # struct example variable;
4448 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
4449 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
4451 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
4452 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4454 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4455 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4458 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4459 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4460 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4462 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4463 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4464 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4465 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4467 * New remote packets
4470 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4473 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4474 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4475 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4478 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4479 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4482 Obtains additional operating system information
4486 Read or write additional signal information.
4488 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4490 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4491 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4492 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4494 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4495 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4497 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4498 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4499 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4501 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4502 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4504 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4506 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4508 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4509 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4511 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
4512 list of section offsets.
4514 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4515 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4516 have also been fixed.
4518 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4519 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4520 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4522 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4525 template<typename T> class C { };
4528 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4530 ptype C<char const *>
4531 ptype C<char const*>
4532 ptype C<const char *>
4533 ptype C<const char*>
4535 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4537 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4538 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4540 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4541 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4542 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4544 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4545 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4547 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4550 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4551 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4553 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4554 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4559 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4560 available is determined at configure time.
4562 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4564 * Ada tasking support
4566 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4570 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4572 Print detailed information about task number N.
4574 Print the task number of the current task.
4576 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4578 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4579 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4581 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4583 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4584 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4585 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4586 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4587 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4588 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4591 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4592 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4595 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4596 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4597 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4598 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4601 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4603 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4604 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4605 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4606 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4607 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4609 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4610 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4611 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4612 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4613 --enable-targets configure option.
4615 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4617 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4618 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4619 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4620 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4621 section in the user manual for more information.
4623 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4624 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4625 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4626 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4627 extensions on linux targets.
4629 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4631 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4632 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4633 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4634 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4635 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4636 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4637 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4638 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4639 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4641 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4643 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4645 maint set python print-stack
4646 maint show python print-stack
4647 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4650 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4655 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4659 Show operating system information about processes.
4662 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4665 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4668 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4671 Kill inferior number NUM.
4675 set spu stop-on-load
4676 show spu stop-on-load
4677 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4679 set spu auto-flush-cache
4680 show spu auto-flush-cache
4681 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4682 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4684 set sh calling-convention
4685 show sh calling-convention
4686 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4689 show debug timestamp
4690 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4692 set disassemble-next-line
4693 show disassemble-next-line
4694 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4697 set remote noack-packet
4698 show remote noack-packet
4699 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4700 under "New remote packets."
4702 set remote query-attached-packet
4703 show remote query-attached-packet
4704 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4706 set remote read-siginfo-object
4707 show remote read-siginfo-object
4708 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4711 set remote write-siginfo-object
4712 show remote write-siginfo-object
4713 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4716 set remote reverse-continue
4717 show remote reverse-continue
4718 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4720 set remote reverse-step
4721 show remote reverse-step
4722 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4724 set displaced-stepping
4725 show displaced-stepping
4726 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4727 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4728 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4731 show debug displaced
4732 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4734 maint set internal-error
4735 maint show internal-error
4736 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4738 maint set internal-warning
4739 maint show internal-warning
4740 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4745 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4747 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4748 show multiple-symbols
4749 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4750 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4751 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4753 set breakpoint always-inserted
4754 show breakpoint always-inserted
4755 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4756 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4757 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4759 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4760 show arm fallback-mode
4761 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4763 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4764 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4765 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4766 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4768 set disable-randomization
4769 show disable-randomization
4770 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4771 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4772 multiple debugging sessions.
4776 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4781 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4782 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4783 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4784 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4786 set target-wide-charset
4787 show target-wide-charset
4788 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4789 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4791 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4793 set tcp connect-timeout
4794 show tcp connect-timeout
4795 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4796 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4797 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4799 set libthread-db-search-path
4800 show libthread-db-search-path
4801 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4804 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4805 show schedule-multiple
4806 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4807 the current process.
4811 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4812 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4813 affecting correctness.
4815 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4816 show interactive-mode
4817 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4818 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4819 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4820 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4821 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4826 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4827 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4828 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4832 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4833 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4834 alias for the `fork' command.
4837 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4838 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4839 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4842 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4843 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4844 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4848 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4849 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4850 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4853 * New native configurations
4855 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4857 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4861 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4862 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4863 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4866 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4867 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4873 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4875 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4877 * New native configurations
4879 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4880 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4884 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4885 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4887 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4889 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4890 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4891 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4892 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4894 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4895 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4897 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4900 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4901 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4902 and in inlined functions.
4904 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4905 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4906 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4908 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4910 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4911 registers on PowerPC targets.
4913 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4914 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4916 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4917 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4919 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4920 extended-remote mode.
4922 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4923 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4924 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4925 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4927 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4928 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4929 target architectures.
4931 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4932 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4933 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4934 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4936 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4939 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4940 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4942 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4943 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4944 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4945 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4947 - Improved command completion in Ada
4950 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4955 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4956 show print frame-arguments
4957 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4958 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4963 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4970 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4972 * New remote packets
4979 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4982 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4986 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4988 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4990 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4991 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4992 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4994 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4995 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4996 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4998 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4999 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
5002 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
5003 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
5005 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
5006 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
5008 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
5010 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
5011 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
5012 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
5014 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
5015 automatically displayed as character or string data.
5017 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
5018 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
5021 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
5022 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
5023 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
5025 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
5028 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
5029 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
5030 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
5032 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
5034 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
5036 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
5037 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
5038 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
5040 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
5041 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
5043 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
5044 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
5045 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
5046 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
5047 Windows and SymbianOS).
5049 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
5050 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
5052 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
5053 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
5059 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
5060 when debugging using remote targets.
5062 set mem inaccessible-by-default
5063 show mem inaccessible-by-default
5064 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5065 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5066 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
5067 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
5068 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
5070 set breakpoint auto-hw
5071 show breakpoint auto-hw
5072 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
5073 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
5074 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
5075 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
5076 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
5077 including "next" and "finish".
5080 catch exception unhandled
5081 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
5084 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
5088 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
5089 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
5090 an alias to "set sysroot".
5093 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
5094 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
5097 * New native configurations
5099 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
5102 unset tdesc filename
5104 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
5105 not query the target for its built-in description.
5109 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
5110 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
5111 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
5113 * New remote packets
5116 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
5117 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
5119 qXfer:features:read:
5120 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
5125 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
5126 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
5128 qXfer:libraries:read:
5129 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
5130 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
5131 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
5132 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
5136 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
5144 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
5145 i[34567]86-*-netware*
5146 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
5147 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
5149 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
5152 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
5153 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
5162 * Other removed features
5169 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
5176 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5181 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5182 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5187 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5188 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5190 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5192 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5193 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5194 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5195 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5197 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5199 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5200 in debugging information.
5204 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5205 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5207 set mips stack-arg-size
5208 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5210 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5212 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5217 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5219 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5220 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5221 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5223 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5224 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5227 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5228 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5230 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5231 stub provides the required support.
5233 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5234 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5239 unset substitute-path
5240 show substitute-path
5241 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5242 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5243 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5244 between compilation and debugging.
5248 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5249 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5250 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5254 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5256 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5257 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5259 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5261 * New remote packets
5264 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5265 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5266 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5267 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5271 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5272 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5274 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5275 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5276 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5281 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5283 * Removed remote packets
5286 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5287 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5289 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5293 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5295 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5299 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5300 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5302 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5304 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5306 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5307 previously saved state.
5309 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5311 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5313 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5314 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5316 info forks List forks of the user program that
5317 are available to be debugged.
5319 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5320 forks of the user program that are
5321 available to be debugged.
5323 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5324 that are available to be debugged (and
5325 kill the forked process).
5327 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5328 that are available to be debugged (and
5329 allow the process to continue).
5333 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5335 * Improved Windows host support
5337 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5338 native console support, and remote communications using either
5339 network sockets or serial ports.
5341 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5343 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5344 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5345 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5346 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5347 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5348 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5352 The ARM rdi-share module.
5354 The Netware NLM debug server.
5356 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5358 * New native configurations
5360 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5361 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5365 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5367 * New command line options
5369 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
5370 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
5371 the child (debugged) program exited with.
5372 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
5373 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
5374 specified multiple times and in conjunction
5375 with the --command (-x) option.
5377 * Deprecated commands removed
5379 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
5383 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
5384 othernames set arm disassembler
5385 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
5386 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
5387 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
5390 * New BSD user-level threads support
5392 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
5393 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
5396 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5397 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
5398 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
5400 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
5401 are not yet supported.
5403 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
5404 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
5406 * REMOVED configurations and files
5408 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
5409 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5410 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
5412 * New "set print array-indexes" command
5414 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
5415 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
5418 * VAX floating point support
5420 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
5422 * User-defined command support
5424 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
5425 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
5426 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
5428 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
5430 * New command line option
5432 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
5435 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
5437 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
5438 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
5439 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
5440 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
5441 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
5443 * Internationalization
5445 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
5446 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
5447 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
5451 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
5452 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5453 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5455 * New native configurations
5457 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5461 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5462 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5464 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5466 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5467 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5468 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5471 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
5472 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5473 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5483 powerpc bdm protocol
5485 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5486 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5488 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5490 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5491 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5492 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5493 permanently REMOVED.
5502 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5504 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5506 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5507 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5510 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5512 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5513 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5514 IRIX long double values).
5518 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5519 command. This problem has been fixed.
5521 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5523 * Fix for ``many threads''
5525 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5526 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5529 ptrace: No such process.
5530 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5532 This problem has been fixed.
5534 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5536 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5539 * New ``start'' command.
5541 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
5543 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5545 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5546 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5547 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5549 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5550 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5551 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5552 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5553 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5554 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5555 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5556 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5557 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5559 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5561 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5562 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5563 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5564 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5565 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5567 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5568 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5569 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5571 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5573 * New native configurations
5575 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5576 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5577 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5578 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5579 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5580 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5581 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5583 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5585 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5586 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5587 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5588 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5589 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5590 work, was also included.
5592 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5593 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5603 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5604 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5606 * REMOVED configurations and files
5608 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5609 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5610 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5611 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5612 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5613 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5614 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5615 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5616 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5617 sonymips mips-sony-*
5618 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5620 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5622 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5624 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5625 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5626 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5627 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5630 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5632 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5633 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5634 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5635 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5636 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5637 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5640 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5642 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5644 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5645 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5646 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5648 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5650 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5651 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5653 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5655 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5656 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5657 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5659 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5661 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5662 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5664 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5666 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5667 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5668 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5670 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5672 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5673 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5674 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5676 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5678 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5680 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5681 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5683 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5685 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5686 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5687 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5688 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5690 * Revised SPARC target
5692 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5693 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5694 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5695 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5696 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5700 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5701 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5702 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5705 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5707 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5708 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5711 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5713 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5714 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5715 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5716 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5717 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5718 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5719 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5720 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5721 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5723 * New native configurations
5725 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5726 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5727 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5728 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5729 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5731 * New debugging protocols
5733 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5735 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5737 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5738 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5739 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5741 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5743 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5744 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5745 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5746 permanently REMOVED.
5748 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5749 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5750 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5751 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5752 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5753 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5754 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5755 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5756 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5757 sonymips mips-sony-*
5758 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5760 * REMOVED configurations and files
5762 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5763 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5764 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5765 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5766 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5767 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5768 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5769 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5770 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5771 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5772 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5773 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5774 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5775 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5776 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5777 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5778 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5780 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5784 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5785 integrated into GDB.
5787 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5789 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5790 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5791 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5794 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5795 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5796 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5800 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5801 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5802 remote protocol documentation for details.
5804 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5806 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5807 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5808 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5811 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5813 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5814 per-thread variables.
5816 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5818 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5819 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5821 * Separate debug info.
5823 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5824 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5825 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5826 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5827 and optional debug files.
5829 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5831 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5832 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5835 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5836 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5840 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5841 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5842 considered "useable".
5844 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5846 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5847 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5850 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5852 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5853 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5855 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5857 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5858 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5861 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5863 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5864 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5868 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5869 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5870 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5871 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5872 data, for more informative profiling results.
5874 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5876 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5877 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5878 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5880 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5883 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5884 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5885 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5886 in a subsequent -var-update.
5888 * New native configurations.
5890 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5892 * Multi-arched targets.
5894 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5895 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5897 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5899 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5900 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5901 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5902 permanently REMOVED.
5904 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5905 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5906 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5907 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5908 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5909 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5910 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5911 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5912 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5913 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5914 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5915 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5917 * REMOVED configurations and files
5920 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5921 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5922 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5923 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5924 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5925 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5927 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5928 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5929 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5930 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5931 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5932 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5934 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5936 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5937 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5938 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5939 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5940 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5942 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5944 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5946 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5947 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5948 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5949 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5950 shared libs like mad''.
5952 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5954 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5955 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5956 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5957 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5959 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5961 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5962 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5965 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5966 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5968 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5969 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5971 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5972 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5973 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5974 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5976 * Multi-arched targets.
5978 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5979 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5981 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5982 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5983 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5987 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5990 * New native configurations
5992 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5993 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5994 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5995 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5997 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5999 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6000 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6001 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6002 permanently REMOVED.
6004 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6005 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6006 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
6007 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6008 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
6009 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6010 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
6011 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
6012 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
6013 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
6015 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
6016 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6018 * OBSOLETE languages
6020 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
6022 * REMOVED configurations and files
6024 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6025 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6026 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6027 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6028 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6030 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6032 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
6034 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
6035 commands. The default is 1024.
6037 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
6039 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
6041 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
6043 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
6044 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
6045 from a file into memory (restore).
6047 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
6049 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
6050 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
6051 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
6053 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
6061 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
6062 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
6063 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
6065 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
6066 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
6067 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
6069 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
6070 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
6071 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
6073 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
6074 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
6075 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
6077 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
6079 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
6081 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
6082 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
6083 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
6084 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
6085 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
6086 (notably embedded) targets.
6088 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
6090 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
6091 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
6092 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
6093 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
6095 * New command line option
6097 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
6099 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
6101 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
6102 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
6103 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
6104 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
6105 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
6106 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
6107 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
6108 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
6109 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
6110 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
6112 * Changes in ARM configurations.
6114 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
6115 configuration is fully multi-arch.
6117 * New native configurations
6119 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
6120 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
6121 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
6122 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
6126 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
6128 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6130 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6131 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6132 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6133 permanently REMOVED.
6135 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
6136 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6137 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6138 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
6139 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
6141 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
6143 * REMOVED configurations and files
6145 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6147 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6148 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6149 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6150 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6151 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6152 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6153 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6154 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6155 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6156 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6157 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
6159 * Changes to command line processing
6161 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
6162 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
6164 * Changes to key bindings
6166 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
6168 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
6170 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
6172 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
6175 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
6177 Numerous documentation fixes.
6179 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6181 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6183 * New native configurations
6185 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6186 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6187 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6188 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6189 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6190 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6194 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6196 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6198 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6200 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6201 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6202 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6203 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6204 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6206 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6207 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6208 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6209 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6210 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6211 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6212 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6213 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6215 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6216 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6218 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6219 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6220 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6221 permanently REMOVED.
6223 * REMOVED configurations and files
6225 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6226 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6228 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6232 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6234 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6235 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6240 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6242 * The MI enabled by default.
6244 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6245 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6246 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6247 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6248 which is now deprecated.
6250 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6252 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6253 main features are supported:
6255 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6257 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6260 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6262 - a Pascal expression parser.
6264 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6266 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6268 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6270 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6271 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6273 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6275 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6277 * Changes in completion.
6279 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6280 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6281 users expect at the shell prompt.
6283 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6284 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6285 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6286 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6287 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6288 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6289 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6291 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6293 * New platform-independent commands:
6295 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6296 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6297 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6299 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6301 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6302 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6303 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6305 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6307 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6308 multi-threaded programs though.
6310 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6312 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6314 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6315 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6318 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6320 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6321 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6322 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6323 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6324 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6327 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6328 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6329 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6331 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6333 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6334 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6336 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6337 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6340 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6341 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6342 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6343 a given linear address.
6345 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6346 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6347 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6349 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6351 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6353 * Changes in documentation.
6355 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6356 Documentation License.
6358 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6361 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6363 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6366 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6367 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6368 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
6370 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
6372 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
6373 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
6374 contents of this file.
6378 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
6380 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
6382 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
6384 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
6385 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
6386 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
6387 greater level of detail.
6389 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
6391 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
6392 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
6393 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
6396 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
6398 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
6399 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
6400 machines ``out of the box''.
6402 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
6403 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
6404 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
6405 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
6406 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
6408 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
6409 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
6410 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
6411 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
6412 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
6414 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
6415 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
6418 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
6421 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
6422 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
6423 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
6424 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
6426 * New native configurations
6428 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
6429 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6433 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
6434 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
6435 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
6436 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6438 * OBSOLETE configurations
6440 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6441 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6443 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6446 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6447 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6448 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6449 be permanently REMOVED.
6451 * Gould support removed
6453 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6455 * New features for SVR4
6457 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6458 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6459 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6461 * Many C++ enhancements
6463 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6464 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6466 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6468 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6469 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6470 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6471 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6473 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6474 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6476 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6478 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6479 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6480 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6482 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6483 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6485 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6487 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6488 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6489 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6491 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6493 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6494 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6495 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6497 * ``apropos'' command added.
6499 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6500 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6501 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6505 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6506 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6507 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6508 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6509 enabled by configuring with:
6511 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6513 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6515 * New native configurations
6517 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6518 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6519 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6523 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6524 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6525 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6527 * OBSOLETE configurations
6529 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6531 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6532 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6533 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6534 be permanently REMOVED.
6538 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6539 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6540 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6541 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6542 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6543 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6544 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6549 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6551 * set extension-language
6553 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6554 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6555 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6556 set extension-language .c c++
6557 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6558 and their associated languages.
6560 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6562 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6563 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6564 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6568 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6569 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6571 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6572 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6574 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6575 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6576 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6577 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6578 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6579 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6580 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6581 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6583 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6584 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6585 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6586 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6590 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6591 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6592 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6593 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6594 for xdb and dbx commands.
6598 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6599 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6600 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6602 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6603 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6604 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6606 * Debugging across forks
6608 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6613 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6614 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6615 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6617 * GDB remote protocol additions
6619 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6620 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6621 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6622 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6624 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6625 full 64-bit address. The command
6627 set remoteaddresssize 32
6629 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6630 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6633 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6634 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6636 maint packet heythere
6638 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6639 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6642 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6643 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6644 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6646 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6648 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6649 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6650 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6652 * mask-address variable for Mips
6654 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6655 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6656 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6658 * Higher serial baud rates
6660 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6661 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6662 to achieve all of these rates.)
6666 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6667 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6670 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6672 * New native configurations
6674 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6675 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6676 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6677 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6678 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6679 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6680 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6684 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6685 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6686 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6687 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6688 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6689 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6690 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6691 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6692 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6693 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6694 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6696 * New debugging protocols
6698 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6699 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6700 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6701 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6702 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6703 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6707 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6708 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6713 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6714 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6716 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6718 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6719 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6720 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6722 * Live range splitting
6724 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6725 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6726 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6730 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6731 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6735 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6736 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6737 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6742 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6747 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6748 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6749 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6750 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6751 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6752 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6756 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6757 the symbol at the specified address.
6761 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6762 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6763 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6764 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6765 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6769 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6770 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6771 of most MIPS variants.
6775 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6776 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6777 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6781 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6782 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6783 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6784 the possible architectures.
6786 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6788 * New native configurations
6790 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6791 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6792 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6793 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6794 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6795 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6799 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6800 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6801 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6802 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6803 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6805 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6809 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6810 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6811 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6812 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6813 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6817 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6819 * Windows 95/NT native
6821 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6822 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6823 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6824 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6825 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6827 * dont-repeat command
6829 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6830 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6831 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6832 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6834 * Send break instead of ^C
6836 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6837 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6838 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6840 * Remote protocol timeout
6842 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6843 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6844 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6846 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6848 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6849 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6850 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6851 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6852 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6854 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6855 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6856 automatically on hpux10.
6858 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6860 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6862 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6864 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6865 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6866 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6867 every character. The default value is 1050.
6869 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6871 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6872 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6873 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6874 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6875 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6876 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6878 * Speedups for remote debugging
6880 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6881 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6882 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6884 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6886 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6887 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6889 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6891 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6893 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6894 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6896 * Remote targets use caching
6898 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6899 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6900 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6901 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6902 off' turns the data cache off.
6904 * Remote targets may have threads
6906 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6907 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6908 gdb/remote.c for details.
6912 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6913 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6914 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6915 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6916 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6917 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6918 sequence is something like
6920 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6922 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6926 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6927 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6928 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6929 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6930 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6931 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6932 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6933 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6937 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6938 but does simplify configuration and building.
6942 GDB now supports hpux10.
6944 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6946 * New native configurations
6948 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6949 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6950 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6951 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6955 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6956 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6957 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6958 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6961 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6963 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6964 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6965 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6966 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6967 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6969 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6971 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6972 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6975 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6977 To execute the command use:
6980 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6981 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6982 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6984 * New `if' and `while' commands
6986 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6987 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6988 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6989 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6990 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6991 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6992 if the expression is zero.
6994 * Fortran source language mode
6996 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6997 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6998 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6999 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
7002 * Better HPUX support
7004 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
7005 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
7006 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
7007 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
7008 that behavior do the following before running the program:
7014 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
7015 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
7021 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
7022 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
7025 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
7026 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
7028 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
7030 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
7031 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
7032 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
7033 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
7034 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
7035 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
7037 * New DOS host serial code
7039 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
7040 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
7043 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
7045 * New "complete" command
7047 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
7048 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
7050 * Trailing space optional in prompt
7052 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
7053 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
7055 * Breakpoint hit counts
7057 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
7058 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
7059 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
7060 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
7061 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
7064 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
7066 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
7067 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
7068 arrays actually contain only short strings.
7070 * Shared library breakpoints
7072 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
7073 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
7075 * Hardware watchpoints
7077 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
7078 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
7080 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
7084 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
7085 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
7087 * Improved Irix 5 support
7089 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
7091 * Improved HPPA support
7093 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
7095 * New native configurations
7097 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
7098 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
7099 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
7100 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
7104 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
7105 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
7108 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
7110 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
7111 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
7115 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
7116 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
7118 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
7120 * Irix 5 is now supported
7124 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
7125 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
7126 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
7127 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
7128 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
7131 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
7133 * User visible changes:
7137 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
7138 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
7139 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
7140 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
7141 debugging info for the mips target).
7143 * DEC Alpha native support
7145 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
7146 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
7147 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
7148 Alpha-specific notes.
7150 * Preliminary thread implementation
7152 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
7154 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
7156 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
7157 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
7160 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
7162 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
7163 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
7164 call methods, ...etc.
7166 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
7168 * User visible changes:
7170 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
7171 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
7172 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
7173 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
7175 Filename completion now works.
7177 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
7178 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
7179 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7181 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7182 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7183 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7184 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7185 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7189 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7190 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7193 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7197 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7198 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7199 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7203 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7204 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7205 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7206 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7207 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7211 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7212 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7213 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7215 * New targets supported
7217 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7218 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7219 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7220 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7221 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7223 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7224 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7225 GO32 memory extender.
7227 * New remote protocols
7229 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7231 * New source languages supported
7233 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7234 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7235 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7238 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7240 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7242 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7243 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7244 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7245 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7246 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7247 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7249 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7251 * Faster and better demangling
7253 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7254 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7255 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7256 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7257 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7258 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7261 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7262 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7263 compiler does not actually implement.
7265 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7267 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7268 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7269 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7270 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7271 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7272 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7275 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7276 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7278 * Improved configure script
7280 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7281 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7282 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7283 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7285 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7286 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7287 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7288 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7289 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7290 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7292 * Documentation improvements
7294 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7295 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7296 before submitting changes.
7298 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7299 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7300 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7301 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7302 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7304 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7305 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7306 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7307 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7308 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7309 around this problem.
7313 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7314 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7315 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7318 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7319 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7321 * New native hosts supported
7323 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7324 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7326 * New targets supported
7328 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7330 * New file formats supported
7332 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7333 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7337 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7339 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7340 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7342 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7343 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7344 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7346 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7347 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7349 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7350 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7351 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7354 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7355 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7356 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7357 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7358 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7360 * Internal improvements
7362 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7363 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7365 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7366 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7367 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7368 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
7369 shared code that handles any of them.
7371 * New command line options
7373 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
7377 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
7378 General Public License.
7380 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
7382 * Host/native/target split
7384 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
7385 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
7386 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
7387 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
7388 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
7390 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
7391 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
7392 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
7393 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
7394 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
7395 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
7396 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
7398 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
7399 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
7400 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
7402 * New hosts supported
7404 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
7405 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7406 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
7408 * New targets supported
7410 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7411 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
7413 * New native hosts supported
7415 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7416 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
7417 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
7419 * New file formats supported
7421 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
7422 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
7423 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
7427 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
7428 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
7429 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
7431 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
7433 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
7434 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
7435 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
7436 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
7440 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
7441 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
7442 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
7444 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
7448 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
7449 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
7452 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7453 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7455 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7456 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7457 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7458 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7459 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7460 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7462 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7463 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7464 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7465 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7469 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7470 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7471 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7472 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7473 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7475 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7476 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7477 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7478 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7482 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7483 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7484 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7485 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7486 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7487 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7488 each instruction being stepped through.
7490 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7491 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7493 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7494 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7495 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7496 processor with a serial port.
7500 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7501 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7502 supported, and what files each one uses.
7506 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7507 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7508 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7509 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7511 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7512 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7513 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7514 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7518 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7519 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7520 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7521 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7522 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7523 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7525 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7528 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7530 * Better support for C++ function names
7532 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7533 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7534 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7535 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7536 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7538 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7539 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7540 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7541 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7542 for the list of formats.
7544 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7546 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7547 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7548 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7549 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
7550 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7551 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7554 * New 'maintenance' command
7556 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7557 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7558 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7560 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7561 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7562 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7563 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7564 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7565 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7567 The following commands are new:
7569 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7570 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7571 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7573 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7575 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7576 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7577 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7578 read after argv processing.
7580 * New hosts supported
7582 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7584 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7586 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7587 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7588 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7589 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7590 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7593 * New targets supported
7595 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7597 * More smarts about finding #include files
7599 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7600 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7601 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7602 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7603 the one that contains your sources.
7605 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7606 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7607 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7609 * Interesting infernals change
7611 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7612 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7613 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7614 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7616 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7618 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7619 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7620 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7622 See the ChangeLog for details.
7624 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7626 * New machines supported (host and target)
7628 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7630 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7632 * New malloc package
7634 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7635 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
7636 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7637 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7638 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7639 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7643 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7644 'help info proc' for details.
7646 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7648 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7649 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7652 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7654 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7655 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7656 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7657 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7658 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7659 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7661 * Cross byte order fixes
7663 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7664 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7666 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7668 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7669 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7670 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7671 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7672 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7673 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7674 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7675 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7676 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7677 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7679 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7680 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7681 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7682 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7684 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7685 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7686 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7689 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7691 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7692 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7693 shared across multiple host platforms.
7695 * longjmp() handling
7697 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7698 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7699 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7700 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7704 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7705 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7710 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7711 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7712 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7714 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7716 * New machines supported (host and target)
7718 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7720 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7721 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7723 * New machines supported (target)
7725 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7729 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7730 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7731 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7733 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7734 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7735 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7736 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7737 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7740 * New features for SVR4
7742 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7743 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7744 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7746 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7747 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7748 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7750 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7751 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7753 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7755 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7756 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7757 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7758 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7759 same code linked statically.
7763 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7764 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7765 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7766 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7767 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7768 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7772 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7773 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7774 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7777 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7779 * New machines supported (host and target)
7781 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7782 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7783 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7785 * Almost SCO Unix support
7787 We had hoped to support:
7788 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7789 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7790 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7791 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7793 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7795 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7796 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7797 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7798 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7803 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7804 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7805 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7809 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7810 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7811 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7813 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7815 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7816 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7817 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7819 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7820 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7821 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7822 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7825 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7826 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7827 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7828 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7831 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7832 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7835 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7836 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7837 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7840 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7842 * Improved configuration
7844 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7845 Porting BFD is simpler.
7849 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7850 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7851 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7852 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7856 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7858 * New host supported (not target)
7860 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7863 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7865 * Multiple source language support
7867 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7868 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7869 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7870 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7871 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7872 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7876 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7877 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7878 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7879 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7881 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7882 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7883 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7885 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7886 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7890 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7891 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7892 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7893 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7896 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7898 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7899 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7900 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7901 examining core files.
7905 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7908 * New machines supported (host and target)
7910 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7911 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7912 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7914 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7916 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7918 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7920 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7921 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7922 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7924 * New remote interfaces
7930 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7934 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7936 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7937 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7938 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7939 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7940 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7941 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7942 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7943 stub on the target system.
7945 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7947 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7948 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7949 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7951 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7952 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7955 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7957 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7958 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7960 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7961 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7962 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7964 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7965 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7966 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7967 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7969 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7970 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7971 it is already running. Default is ON.
7973 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7974 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7975 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7976 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7979 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7980 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7981 or the value of the environment variable
7984 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7985 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7988 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7989 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7990 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7992 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7993 history expansion will be performed on
7994 command line input. The default is OFF.
7996 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7997 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7998 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
8000 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
8001 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
8002 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8005 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
8006 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
8007 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
8010 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
8011 ``set width'' instead.
8013 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
8014 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
8015 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
8016 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
8018 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
8021 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
8024 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
8027 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
8030 * Support for Epoch Environment.
8032 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
8033 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
8034 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
8038 * Support for Shared Libraries
8040 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
8041 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
8042 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
8043 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
8044 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
8045 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
8046 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
8047 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
8049 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
8050 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
8051 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
8053 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
8058 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
8059 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
8060 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
8061 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
8062 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
8063 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
8065 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
8067 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
8069 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8070 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8071 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
8074 * C++ multiple inheritance
8076 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
8079 * C++ exception handling
8081 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
8082 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
8083 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
8086 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
8087 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
8088 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
8090 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
8091 current stack frame.
8094 * Minor command changes
8096 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
8097 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
8098 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
8100 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
8101 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
8102 frames without printing.
8104 * New directory command
8106 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
8107 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
8108 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
8109 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
8110 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
8112 * Configuring GDB for compilation
8114 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
8117 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
8118 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
8119 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
8120 where the program that you are debugging will run.