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