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