792548139e9d9e314784a07ab5b4b701a842b58d
[binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 8.3
5
6 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
7 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
8 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
9 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
10 such as in system-wide init files.
11
12 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
13 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
14 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
15 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
16
17 * Support for Pointer Authentication on AArch64 Linux.
18
19 * Two new convernience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
20 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
21
22 * Python API
23
24 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
25 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
26 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
27 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
28 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
29
30 * New commands
31
32 set may-call-functions [on|off]
33 show may-call-functions
34 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
35 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
36 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
37 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
38 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
39 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
40 in the program.
41
42 set print max-depth
43 show print max-depth
44 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
45 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
46 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
47 the old behavior back.
48
49 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
50 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
51 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
52
53 * New MI commands
54
55 -complete
56 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
57 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
58 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
59
60 * Testsuite
61
62 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
63 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
64 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
65 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
66
67 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
68
69 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
70 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
71 HTM registers.
72
73 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
74 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
75 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
76 and operators.
77
78 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
79 (the C++ plug-in).
80
81 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
82 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
83 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
84
85 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
86 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
87
88 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
89 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
90 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
91 in the GDB user manual.
92
93 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
94 executed failed.
95
96 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
97
98 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
99 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
100 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
101 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
102 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
103 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
104 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
105 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
106 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
107 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
108 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
109 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
110
111 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
112 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
113 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
114 information.
115
116 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
117 lucid.
118
119 * New commands
120
121 set debug compile-cplus-types
122 show debug compile-cplus-types
123 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
124 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiliong
125 for other languages.
126
127 set debug skip
128 show debug skip
129 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
130 displayed.
131
132 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
133 Apply a command to some frames.
134 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
135 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
136
137 taas COMMAND
138 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
139 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
140
141 faas COMMAND
142 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
143 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
144
145 tfaas COMMAND
146 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
147 output).
148 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
149
150 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
151 maint show dwarf unwinders
152 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
153
154 info proc files
155 Display a list of open files for a process.
156
157 * Changed commands
158
159 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
160 These commands all now take a frame specification which
161 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
162 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
163 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
164 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
165 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
166
167 target remote FILENAME
168 target extended-remote FILENAME
169 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
170 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
171
172 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
173 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
174 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
175 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
176 These commands can now print only the searched entities
177 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
178 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
179 printing headers or informations messages.
180
181 info functions
182 info types
183 info variables
184 rbreak
185 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
186 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
187 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
188 the shown entities.
189
190 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
191 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
192 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
193 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
194
195 set tui tab-width NCHARS
196 show tui tab-width NCHARS
197 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
198
199 set style enabled [on|off]
200 show style enabled
201 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
202 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
203
204 set style sources [on|off]
205 show style sources
206 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
207 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
208 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
209
210 set style filename foreground COLOR
211 set style filename background COLOR
212 set style filename intensity VALUE
213 Control the styling of file names.
214
215 set style function foreground COLOR
216 set style function background COLOR
217 set style function intensity VALUE
218 Control the styling of function names.
219
220 set style variable foreground COLOR
221 set style variable background COLOR
222 set style variable intensity VALUE
223 Control the styling of variable names.
224
225 set style address foreground COLOR
226 set style address background COLOR
227 set style address intensity VALUE
228 Control the styling of addresses.
229
230 * MI changes
231
232 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
233
234 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
235 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
236 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
237 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
238 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
239
240 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
241 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
242
243 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
244 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
245 the following commands and events:
246
247 - -break-insert
248 - -break-info
249 - =breakpoint-created
250 - =breakpoint-modified
251
252 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
253 this behavior with previous MI versions.
254
255 * New native configurations
256
257 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
258 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
259
260 * New targets
261
262 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
263 CSKY ELF csky*-*-elf
264 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
265 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
266 NXP S12Z s12z-*-elf
267 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
268
269 * Removed targets
270
271 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
272 before Windows XP.
273
274 * Python API
275
276 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
277
278 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
279 space associated to that inferior.
280
281 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
282 of objfiles associated to that program space.
283
284 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
285 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
286 the gdb core.
287
288 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
289 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
290 correct and did not work properly.
291
292 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
293 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
294
295 * Configure changes
296
297 --enable-ubsan
298
299 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
300 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
301 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
302 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
303 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
304
305 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
306
307 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
308 for the MIPS target.
309
310 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
311 offset to all sections.
312
313 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
314 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
315 address of individual sections using '-s'.
316
317 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
318 (address of the text section).
319
320 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
321 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
322 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
323 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
324 default.
325
326 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
327 for the rest of the current command.
328
329 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
330 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
331
332 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
333 files created on FreeBSD systems.
334
335 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
336 alignof.
337
338 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
339 the vector length while the process is running.
340
341 * New commands
342
343 set debug fbsd-nat
344 show debug fbsd-nat
345 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
346
347 set|show varsize-limit
348 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
349 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
350 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
351
352 set|show record btrace cpu
353 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
354 branch trace decode.
355
356 maint check libthread-db
357 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
358 library
359
360 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
361 maint show check-libthread-db
362 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
363 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
364 perform such checks.
365
366 * Python API
367
368 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
369
370 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
371 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
372
373 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
374
375 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
376 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
377 of convenience variables.
378
379 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
380 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
381 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
382
383 * New targets
384
385 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
386
387 * Removed targets and native configurations
388
389 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
390 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
391 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
392 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
393
394 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
395
396 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
397 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
398 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
399 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
400 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
401 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
402 reported.
403
404 * Configure changes
405
406 --enable-codesign=CERT
407 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
408 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
409 gdb to work properly.
410
411 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
412 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
413
414 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
415
416 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
417 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
418 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
419
420 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
421 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
422
423 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
424 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
425 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
426 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
427 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
428
429 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
430 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
431 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
432 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
433
434 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
435 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
436
437 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
438 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
439 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
440
441 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
442 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
443 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
444
445 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
446 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
447 environment" command.
448
449 * Completion improvements
450
451 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
452 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
453 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
454 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
455 correctly:
456
457 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
458 (gdb) b function(int)
459
460 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
461 C++ anonymous namespaces:
462
463 (gdb) b (anon[TAB]
464 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
465 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
466 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
467
468 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
469 completion support, that better understands what you're
470 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
471 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
472 setting a breakpoint.
473
474 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
475
476 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
477
478 * New command line options (gcore)
479
480 -a
481 Dump all memory mappings.
482
483 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
484
485 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
486 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
487 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
488
489 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
490
491 A::B::func()
492 B::func()
493
494 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
495 on both symbols.
496
497 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
498 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
499 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
500 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
501 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
502 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
503 a breakpoint from Python.
504
505 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
506
507 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
508 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
509 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
510
511 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
512
513 function[abi:cxx11](int)
514 ^^^^^^^^^^^
515
516 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
517 no tag, like:
518
519 (gdb) b function(int)
520
521 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
522
523 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
524
525 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
526
527 * Python Scripting
528
529 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
530 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
531 description of these.
532
533 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
534 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
535 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
536
537 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
538 manual for a further description of this feature.
539
540
541 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
542
543 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
544 specified initial working directory.
545
546 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
547 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
548
549 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
550 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
551
552 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
553 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
554
555 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
556 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
557 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
558 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
559 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
560
561 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
562 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
563 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
564
565 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
566 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
567 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
568 in the *stopped notification.
569
570 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
571 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
572
573 * New remote packets
574
575 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
576 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
577 the inferior when starting it.
578
579 QEnvironmentUnset
580 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
581 before starting the remote inferior.
582
583 QEnvironmentReset
584 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
585 user-set environment variables should be unset).
586
587 QStartupWithShell
588 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
589
590 QSetWorkingDir
591 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
592 working directory.
593
594 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
595 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
596
597 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
598 filter the tests to be run.
599
600 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
601 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
602
603 * New commands
604
605 set|show cwd
606 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
607
608 set|show compile-gcc
609 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
610 with the 'compile' commands.
611
612 set debug separate-debug-file
613 show debug separate-debug-file
614 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
615
616 set dump-excluded-mappings
617 show dump-excluded-mappings
618 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
619 dumped when generating a core file.
620
621 maint info selftests
622 List the registered selftests.
623
624 starti
625 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
626
627 set|show debug or1k
628 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
629
630 set|show print type nested-type-limit
631 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
632 type printer will show.
633
634 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
635 `o' for nexti.
636
637 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
638
639 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
640 'int'.
641
642 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
643 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
644 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
645 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
646
647 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
648 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
649 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
650 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
651 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
652 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
653
654 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
655 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
656 unless you tell it the variable's type:
657
658 (gdb) p var
659 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
660 (gdb) p (float) var
661 $3 = 3.14
662
663 * New native configurations
664
665 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
666 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
667
668 * New targets
669
670 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
671 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
672 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
673
674 * Removed targets and native configurations
675
676 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
677
678 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
679
680 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
681 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
682 available in future Intel CPUs.
683
684 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
685
686 * Python Scripting
687
688 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
689 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
690
691 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
692 instructions.
693
694 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
695
696 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
697
698 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
699 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
700 removed.
701
702 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
703
704 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
705 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
706
707 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
708
709 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
710 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
711 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
712 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
713 features.
714
715 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
716
717 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
718 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
719 debugger.
720
721 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
722
723 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
724 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
725
726 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
727
728 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
729
730 define mycommand
731 set $i = 0
732 while $i < $argc
733 eval "print $arg%d", $i
734 set $i = $i + 1
735 end
736 end
737
738 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
739
740 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
741 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
742
743 * New native configurations
744
745 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
746
747 * New targets
748
749 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
750 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
751
752 * Removed targets and native configurations
753
754 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
755 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
756
757 * New commands
758
759 flash-erase
760 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
761
762 maint print arc arc-instruction address
763 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
764
765 * New options
766
767 set disassembler-options
768 show disassembler-options
769 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
770 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
771 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
772 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
773 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
774
775 * New MI commands
776
777 -target-flash-erase
778 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
779 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
780
781 -file-list-shared-libraries
782 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
783 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
784
785 -catch-handlers
786 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
787 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
788
789 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
790
791 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
792
793 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
794 default. One must now explicitly configure with
795 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
796 option will be removed in a future release.
797
798 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
799 GDB connection.
800
801 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
802 memory backward from the given address. For example:
803
804 (gdb) bt
805 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
806 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
807 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
808 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
809 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
810 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
811 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
812 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
813 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
814
815 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
816 arrays of dynamic types.
817
818 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
819 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
820 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
821 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
822 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
823 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
824
825 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
826 descriptions.
827
828 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
829 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
830 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
831
832 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
833
834 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
835 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
836 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
837 signal received and code location.
838
839 For example:
840
841 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
842 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
843 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
844 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
845
846 * Rust language support.
847 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
848 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
849 Rust.
850
851 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
852
853 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
854 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
855 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
856 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
857 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
858 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
859 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
860 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
861 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
862 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
863 line.
864
865 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
866
867 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
868 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
869
870 * New commands
871
872 skip -file file
873 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
874 skip -function function
875 skip -rfunction regular-expression
876 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
877 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
878 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
879
880 maint info line-table REGEXP
881 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data struture.
882
883 maint selftest
884 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
885
886 new-ui INTERP TTY
887 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
888 using the TTY file for input/output.
889
890 * Python Scripting
891
892 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
893 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
894 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
895 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
896 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
897
898 signal-event EVENTID
899 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
900 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
901 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
902 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
903 signalling an event.
904
905 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
906 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
907 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
908
909 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
910 been removed:
911
912 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
913 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
914 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
915 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
916 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
917 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
918
919 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
920 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
921 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
922 bytecode into native code.
923
924 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
925 recording. For example:
926
927 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
928
929 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
930
931 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
932
933 * New targets
934
935 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
936
937 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
938
939 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
940
941 * Per-inferior thread numbers
942
943 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
944 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
945 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
946
947 (gdb) info threads
948 Id Target Id Frame
949 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
950 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
951 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
952 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
953
954 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
955 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
956 are no longer unique between inferiors.
957
958 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
959 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
960 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
961
962 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
963 IDs.
964
965 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
966 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
967
968 (gdb) thread 2.1
969 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
970 (gdb)
971
972 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
973 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
974 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
975 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
976 threads 2.*".
977
978 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
979 all threads.
980
981 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
982 the current thread.
983
984 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
985 current inferior.
986
987 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
988 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
989 example:
990
991 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
992 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
993
994 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
995
996 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
997
998 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
999 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1000
1001 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1002 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1003 clients.
1004
1005 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1006 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1007 at the same time.
1008
1009 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1010 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1011 into native code.
1012
1013 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1014
1015 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1016 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1017 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1018
1019 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1020 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1021
1022 * New commands
1023
1024 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1025 maint show target-non-stop
1026 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1027 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1028 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1029
1030 maint set bfd-sharing
1031 maint show bfd-sharing
1032 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1033
1034 set debug bfd-cache
1035 show debug bfd-cache
1036 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1037
1038 set debug fbsd-lwp
1039 show debug fbsd-lwp
1040 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1041
1042 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1043 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1044 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1045
1046 set remote thread-events
1047 show remote thread-events
1048 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1049
1050 set ada print-signatures on|off
1051 show ada print-signatures"
1052 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1053 selection menus. It is activaled (@code{on}) by default.
1054
1055 set max-value-size
1056 show max-value-size
1057 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1058 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1059 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1060
1061 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1062 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1063 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1064 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1065 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1066 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1067
1068 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1069 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1070
1071 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1072 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1073
1074 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1075
1076 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1077 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1078 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1079 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1080 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1081 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1082
1083 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1084 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1085
1086 catch handlers
1087 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1088
1089 * New remote packets
1090
1091 exec stop reason
1092 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1093
1094 exec-events feature in qSupported
1095 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1096 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1097 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1098 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1099
1100 vCtrlC
1101 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1102 non-stop mode.
1103
1104 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1105 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1106
1107 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1108 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1109
1110 QThreadEvents
1111 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1112 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1113 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1114 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1115 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1116 stop for that same thread.
1117
1118 N stop reply
1119 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1120 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1121 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1122
1123 QCatchSyscalls
1124 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1125 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1126
1127 syscall_entry stop reason
1128 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1129
1130 syscall_return stop reason
1131 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1132
1133 * Extended-remote exec events
1134
1135 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1136 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1137 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1138
1139 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1140 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1141 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1142
1143 * Thread names in remote protocol
1144
1145 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1146 thread.
1147
1148 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1149
1150 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1151 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1152 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1153 fork and exec catchpoints.
1154
1155 * Remote syscall events
1156
1157 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1158 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1159
1160 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1161 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1162 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1163
1164 * MI changes
1165
1166 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1167 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1168 left.
1169
1170 * Python Scripting
1171
1172 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1173 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1174 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1175 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1176 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1177 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1178
1179 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1180
1181 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1182 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1183 including advance SIMD instructions.
1184
1185 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1186
1187 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1188 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1189 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1190 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1191 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1192 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1193 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1194
1195 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1196 cpu information :
1197 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1198
1199 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1200 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1201 remote serial I/O.
1202
1203 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1204 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1205 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1206
1207 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1208 is now available on all platforms.
1209
1210 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1211 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1212 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1213 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1214 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1215 backward compatibility.
1216
1217 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1218 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1219 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1220 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1221
1222 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1223 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1224 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1225 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1226 packets" below.
1227
1228 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1229
1230 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1231
1232 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1233 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1234 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1235 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1236 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1237 See "New remote packets" below.
1238
1239 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1240 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1241
1242 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1243 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1244 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1245 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1246 are ignored.
1247
1248 * Guile Scripting
1249
1250 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1251
1252 * Python Scripting
1253
1254 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1255 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1256 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1257 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1258 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1259 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1260 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1261 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1262 "const" version of the value respectively.
1263
1264 * New commands
1265
1266 maint print symbol-cache
1267 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1268
1269 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1270 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1271
1272 maint flush-symbol-cache
1273 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1274
1275 record btrace bts
1276 record bts
1277 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1278
1279 compile print
1280 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1281
1282 tui enable
1283 tui disable
1284 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1285
1286 show mpx bound
1287 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1288 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1289
1290 record btrace pt
1291 record pt
1292 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1293
1294 maint info btrace
1295 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1296
1297 maint btrace packet-history
1298 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1299
1300 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1301 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1302
1303 maint btrace clear
1304 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1305 anew by the next "record" command.
1306
1307 * New options
1308
1309 set debug dwarf-die
1310 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1311 show debug dwarf-die
1312 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1313
1314 set debug dwarf-read
1315 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1316 show debug dwarf-read
1317 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1318
1319 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1320 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1321 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1322 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1323
1324 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1325 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1326 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1327 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1328
1329 set debug dwarf-line
1330 show debug dwarf-line
1331 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1332
1333 set max-completions
1334 show max-completions
1335 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1336 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1337 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1338 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1339
1340 set history remove-duplicates
1341 show history remove-duplicates
1342 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1343
1344 maint set symbol-cache-size
1345 maint show symbol-cache-size
1346 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1347
1348 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1349 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1350 BTS format.
1351 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1352 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1353
1354 set debug linux-namespaces
1355 show debug linux-namespaces
1356 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1357
1358 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1359 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1360 Intel Processor Trace format.
1361 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1362 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1363
1364 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1365 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1366 packet history.
1367
1368 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1369 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1370
1371 * Python/Guile scripting
1372
1373 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1374 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1375
1376 * New remote packets
1377
1378 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1379 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1380
1381 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1382 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1383
1384 Qbtrace:pt
1385 Enable Intel Procesor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1386 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1387 qSupported query.
1388
1389 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1390 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1391 Trace format.
1392
1393 swbreak stop reason
1394 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1395 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1396 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1397 mode operation.
1398
1399 hwbreak stop reason
1400 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1401 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1402
1403 vFile:fstat:
1404 Return information about files on the remote system.
1405
1406 qXfer:exec-file:read
1407 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1408 create a process running on the remote system.
1409
1410 vFile:setfs:
1411 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1412 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1413 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1414 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1415
1416 fork stop reason
1417 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1418
1419 vfork stop reason
1420 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1421
1422 vforkdone stop reason
1423 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1424 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1425
1426 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1427 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
1428 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
1429 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
1430 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
1431 whether these features are enabled.
1432
1433 * Extended-remote fork events
1434
1435 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
1436 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
1437 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
1438 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
1439
1440 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
1441 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
1442 the btrace record target.
1443 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
1444
1445 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
1446 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
1447
1448 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
1449 targets.
1450
1451 * Removed command line options
1452
1453 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
1454
1455 * Removed targets and native configurations
1456
1457 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
1458 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1459
1460 * New configure options
1461
1462 --with-intel-pt
1463 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
1464 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
1465
1466 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
1467 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
1468 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
1469 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
1470
1471 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
1472
1473 * Python Scripting
1474
1475 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
1476
1477 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
1478
1479 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
1480
1481 * Python Scripting
1482
1483 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
1484 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
1485 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
1486 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
1487 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
1488 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
1489 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
1490 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
1491 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
1492 selecting a new file to debug.
1493 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
1494 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
1495
1496 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
1497 inferior.
1498
1499 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
1500 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
1501 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
1502 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
1503
1504 * New Python-based convenience functions:
1505
1506 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1507 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1508 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
1509 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
1510
1511 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
1512 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
1513 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
1514 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
1515 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
1516 interface with this new feature are:
1517
1518 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
1519 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
1520
1521 * New commands
1522
1523 demangle [-l language] [--] name
1524 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
1525 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
1526 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
1527 as "maint demangler-warning".
1528
1529 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
1530 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
1531
1532 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
1533 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
1534 scripts.
1535
1536 maint print user-registers
1537 List all currently available "user" registers.
1538
1539 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
1540 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
1541 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
1542
1543 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
1544 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
1545 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
1546 provided.
1547
1548 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
1549 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
1550 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
1551 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
1552 at resume time.
1553
1554 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
1555 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
1556 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
1557 switched threads meanwhile.
1558
1559 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
1560
1561 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
1562 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
1563 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
1564 is now the default mode.
1565
1566 * New options
1567
1568 set debug symbol-lookup
1569 show debug symbol-lookup
1570 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
1571
1572 * MI changes
1573
1574 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
1575 inferiors that have exited.
1576
1577 * New targets
1578
1579 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
1580
1581 * Removed targets
1582
1583 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1584
1585 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
1586 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
1587 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
1588 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
1589 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
1590
1591 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1592 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1593 its alias "share", instead.
1594
1595 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
1596
1597 * New command line options
1598
1599 -D data-directory
1600 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
1601
1602 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
1603 as specified in ISO C99.
1604
1605 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
1606 with or without disassembly.
1607
1608 * Guile scripting
1609
1610 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
1611 available is determined at configure time.
1612 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
1613 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
1614
1615 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1616
1617 guile [code]
1618 gu [code]
1619 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
1620
1621 guile-repl
1622 gr
1623 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
1624
1625 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
1626 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
1627
1628 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
1629 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
1630
1631 * New options
1632
1633 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
1634 show print symbol-loading
1635 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
1636 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
1637 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
1638 becomes less useful.
1639
1640 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
1641 show guile print-stack
1642 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
1643
1644 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
1645 show auto-load guile-scripts
1646 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
1647
1648 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
1649 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
1650 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
1651 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
1652 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
1653 usage of this option.
1654
1655 set auto-connect-native-target
1656
1657 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
1658 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
1659 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
1660
1661 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
1662 show record btrace replay-memory-access
1663 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
1664
1665 maint set target-async (on|off)
1666 maint show target-async
1667 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
1668 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
1669 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
1670 occurring only in synchronous mode.
1671
1672 set mi-async (on|off)
1673 show mi-async
1674 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
1675 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
1676
1677 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
1678 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
1679
1680 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
1681 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
1682 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
1683 "set target-async on" command.
1684
1685 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1686
1687 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
1688 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
1689 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
1690 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
1691 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
1692
1693 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
1694 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
1695 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
1696
1697 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
1698 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
1699 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
1700 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
1701 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
1702 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
1703 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
1704
1705 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
1706 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
1707
1708 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
1709 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
1710 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
1711
1712 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
1713 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
1714 memory or registers.
1715
1716 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
1717
1718 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
1719 remote. It now works with all targets.
1720
1721 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
1722 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
1723 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
1724 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
1725 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
1726 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
1727 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
1728 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
1729 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
1730 target-stack".
1731
1732 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
1733 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
1734 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
1735
1736 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
1737
1738 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
1739 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
1740 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
1741
1742 * New remote packets
1743
1744 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
1745 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
1746 branch trace incrementally.
1747
1748 * Python Scripting
1749
1750 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
1751 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
1752 available.
1753 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
1754 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
1755 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
1756 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
1757 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
1758
1759 * New targets
1760 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
1761
1762 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
1763 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
1764 its alias "share", instead.
1765
1766 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
1767 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
1768 instead.
1769
1770 * MI changes
1771
1772 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
1773 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
1774 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
1775 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
1776 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
1777 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
1778 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
1779 commands and CLI execution commands.
1780
1781 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
1782
1783 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
1784 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
1785 recording has been added.
1786
1787 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1788
1789 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
1790 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
1791
1792 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
1793 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
1794 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
1795 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
1796 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
1797 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
1798 "void".
1799
1800 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
1801
1802 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
1803
1804 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
1805 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
1806 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
1807 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
1808
1809 (gdb) p $rax
1810 $1 = <not saved>
1811
1812 (gdb) info registers rax
1813 rax <not saved>
1814
1815 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
1816 "*value not available*".
1817
1818 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
1819 to binaries.
1820
1821 * Python scripting
1822
1823 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
1824 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1825 ** Line tables representation has been added.
1826 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
1827 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
1828 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1829
1830 * New targets
1831
1832 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
1833 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
1834 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
1835
1836 * Removed native configurations
1837
1838 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
1839 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
1840
1841 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1842 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1843 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
1844 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
1845 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1846 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1847 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
1848
1849 * New commands:
1850 catch rethrow
1851 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
1852 maint check-psymtabs
1853 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
1854 maint check-symtabs
1855 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
1856 maint expand-symtabs
1857 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
1858
1859 show configuration
1860 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1861
1862 maint set|show per-command
1863 maint set|show per-command space
1864 maint set|show per-command time
1865 maint set|show per-command symtab
1866 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
1867
1868 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
1869 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
1870 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
1871 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
1872 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
1873
1874 info exceptions
1875 info exceptions REGEXP
1876 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
1877 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
1878 are listed.
1879
1880 * New options
1881
1882 set debug symfile off|on
1883 show debug symfile
1884 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
1885 symbol tables within those files
1886
1887 set print raw frame-arguments
1888 show print raw frame-arguments
1889 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
1890 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
1891
1892 set remote trace-status-packet
1893 show remote trace-status-packet
1894 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
1895
1896 set debug nios2
1897 show debug nios2
1898 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
1899
1900 set range-stepping
1901 show range-stepping
1902 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
1903
1904 set startup-with-shell
1905 show startup-with-shell
1906 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
1907 directly.
1908
1909 set code-cache
1910 show code-cache
1911 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
1912 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
1913
1914 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
1915 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
1916 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
1917 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
1918 "set height 0".
1919
1920 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
1921 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
1922 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
1923
1924 * New command-line options
1925 --configuration
1926 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
1927
1928 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
1929 buffer in Common Trace Format.
1930
1931 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
1932 GDB command gcore.
1933
1934 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
1935
1936 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
1937 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
1938
1939 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
1940 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
1941
1942 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
1943 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
1944 due to an uncaught signal.
1945
1946 * MI changes
1947
1948 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
1949 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
1950 command, which should contain "language-option".
1951
1952 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
1953 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
1954
1955 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
1956 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
1957 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
1958 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1959 "undefined-command-error-code".
1960
1961 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
1962 Trace Format now.
1963
1964 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
1965
1966 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
1967 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
1968 are displayed.
1969
1970 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
1971 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
1972
1973 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
1974 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
1975 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
1976
1977 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
1978 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
1979 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
1980 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
1981 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
1982 "exec-run-start-option".
1983
1984 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
1985 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
1986
1987 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
1988 the new "info exceptions" command.
1989
1990 * New system-wide configuration scripts
1991 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
1992 configuration scripts for the following systems:
1993 ** ElinOS
1994 ** Wind River Linux
1995
1996 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
1997 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
1998 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
1999 below.
2000
2001 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2002 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2003
2004 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2005 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2006 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2007
2008 * New remote packets
2009
2010 vCont;r
2011
2012 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2013 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2014 involvemement at each single-step.
2015
2016 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2017 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2018 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2019 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2020 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2021 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2022 speedup.
2023
2024 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2025
2026 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2027 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2028
2029 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2030 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2031 trace state variables.
2032
2033 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2034 target.
2035
2036 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2037 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2038
2039 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2040
2041 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2042 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2043 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2044 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2045
2046 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2047
2048 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2049 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2050 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2051 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2052
2053 set|show record full insn-number-max
2054 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2055 set|show record full memory-query
2056
2057 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2058 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2059 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2060 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2061 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2062
2063 record btrace
2064
2065 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2066 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2067
2068 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2069 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2070 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2071
2072 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2073 instruction granularity
2074
2075 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2076 function granularity
2077
2078 * New native configurations
2079
2080 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2081 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2082 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2083 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2084
2085 * New targets
2086
2087 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2088 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2089 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2090 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2091 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2092
2093 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2094 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2095 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2096 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2097 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2098 --data-directory command-line option.
2099
2100 * New command line options:
2101
2102 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2103 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2104
2105 * Removed command line options
2106
2107 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2108 Emacs.
2109
2110 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2111 type formatting.
2112
2113 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2114
2115 * Python scripting
2116
2117 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2118
2119 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2120
2121 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2122
2123 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2124
2125 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2126 of architecture in the Python API.
2127
2128 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2129 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2130
2131 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2132
2133 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2134 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2135 ** $_strlen(str)
2136 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2137
2138 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2139 given an argument.
2140
2141 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2142 default for GCC since November 2000.
2143
2144 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2145
2146 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2147 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2148
2149 * New configure options
2150
2151 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2152 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2153 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2154 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2155 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2156 options allow the user to override that default.
2157 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2158 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2159 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2160
2161 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2162
2163 catch signal
2164 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2165 conditions to be attached.
2166
2167 maint info bfds
2168 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2169
2170 python-interactive [command]
2171 pi [command]
2172 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2173 and print the result of expressions.
2174
2175 py [command]
2176 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2177
2178 enable type-printer [name]...
2179 disable type-printer [name]...
2180 Enable or disable type printers.
2181
2182 * Removed commands
2183
2184 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2185 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2186 instead.
2187
2188 * New options
2189
2190 set print type methods (on|off)
2191 show print type methods
2192 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2193 The default is to show them.
2194
2195 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2196 show print type typedefs
2197 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2198 The default is to show them.
2199
2200 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2201 show filename-display
2202 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2203 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2204
2205 set trace-buffer-size
2206 show trace-buffer-size
2207 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2208
2209 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2210 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2211 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2212
2213 set debug aarch64
2214 show debug aarch64
2215 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2216 The default is off.
2217
2218 set debug coff-pe-read
2219 show debug coff-pe-read
2220 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2221 exported symbols.
2222
2223 set debug mach-o
2224 show debug mach-o
2225 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2226 processing.
2227
2228 set debug notification
2229 show debug notification
2230 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2231
2232 * MI changes
2233
2234 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2235 "=cmd-param-changed".
2236 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2237 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2238 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2239 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2240 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2241 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2242 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2243 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2244 "=memory-changed".
2245 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2246 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2247 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2248 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2249 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2250 library load/unload events.
2251 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2252 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2253 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2254 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2255 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2256 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2257 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2258 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2259
2260 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2261 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2262 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2263 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2264
2265 * New remote packets
2266
2267 QTBuffer:size
2268 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2269 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2270
2271 Qbtrace:bts
2272 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2273 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2274 qSupported query.
2275
2276 Qbtrace:off
2277 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2278 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2279
2280 qXfer:btrace:read
2281 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2282 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2283
2284 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2285
2286 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2287 for more x32 ABI info.
2288
2289 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2290
2291 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2292
2293 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2294 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2295 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2296 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2297 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2298 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2299 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2300 "info os msg" lists message queues
2301 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2302
2303 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2304 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2305 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2306 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2307 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2308 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2309
2310 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2311 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2312 record/replay support.
2313
2314 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2315
2316 * Python scripting
2317
2318 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2319 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
2320
2321 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2322
2323 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2324 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2325
2326 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2327
2328 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2329 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2330
2331 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2332 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2333 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2334 symbol's value.
2335
2336 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2337 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2338
2339 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2340 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2341 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2342
2343 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2344 object associated with a PC value.
2345
2346 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2347 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2348
2349 * Go language support.
2350 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2351 language.
2352
2353 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2354 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2355
2356 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2357 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2358
2359 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2360 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2361 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2362 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2363 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2364 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
2365
2366 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2367 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2368 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2369 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2370
2371 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2372 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2373
2374 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2375 since December 2007.
2376
2377 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2378 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2379 command does. For instance:
2380
2381 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2382
2383 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2384 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2385 created, using the "condition" command.
2386
2387 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2388 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2389
2390 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2391
2392 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2393 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2394 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2395 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2396 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2397 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2398 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2399 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2400
2401 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2402 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2403 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2404 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2405 the .gdb_index section.
2406
2407 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2408
2409 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2410 target.
2411
2412 * MI changes
2413
2414 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2415
2416 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2417
2418 * New commands
2419
2420 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2421 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2422 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2423
2424 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2425 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2426
2427 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
2428 several hits.
2429
2430 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
2431 C++ and Java objects.
2432
2433 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
2434 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
2435 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
2436 configured with '--with-python'.
2437
2438 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
2439 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
2440 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
2441 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
2442 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
2443 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
2444 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
2445
2446 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
2447 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
2448 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
2449 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
2450
2451 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
2452 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
2453 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
2454 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
2455
2456 ** "set print symbol"
2457 "show print symbol"
2458 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
2459 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
2460 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
2461
2462 * Deprecated commands
2463
2464 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
2465 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
2466
2467 * New targets
2468
2469 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2470 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
2471
2472 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
2473 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
2474 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
2475 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
2476 evaluates to true.
2477
2478 * New options
2479
2480 set mips compression
2481 show mips compression
2482 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
2483 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
2484 mips16
2485 micromips
2486 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
2487
2488 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
2489 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
2490 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
2491 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
2492 available mode.
2493 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
2494 target.
2495
2496 set auto-load off
2497 Disable auto-loading globally.
2498
2499 show auto-load
2500 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
2501
2502 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
2503 show auto-load gdb-scripts
2504 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
2505
2506 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
2507 show auto-load python-scripts
2508 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
2509
2510 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
2511 show auto-load local-gdbinit
2512 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
2513
2514 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
2515 show auto-load libthread-db
2516 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
2517
2518 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2519 show auto-load scripts-directory
2520 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
2521 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
2522 of the directories listed by this option.
2523 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2524
2525 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
2526 show auto-load safe-path
2527 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
2528 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
2529
2530 set debug auto-load on|off
2531 show debug auto-load
2532 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
2533
2534 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
2535 show dprintf-style
2536 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
2537 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
2538 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
2539 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
2540
2541 set dprintf-function <expr>
2542 show dprintf-function
2543 set dprintf-channel <expr>
2544 show dprintf-channel
2545 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
2546 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
2547
2548 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
2549 show disconnected-dprintf
2550 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
2551 after GDB disconnects.
2552
2553 * New configure options
2554
2555 --with-auto-load-dir
2556 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
2557 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
2558 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
2559 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
2560 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
2561
2562 --with-auto-load-safe-path
2563 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
2564 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
2565
2566 --without-auto-load-safe-path
2567 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
2568 security feature.
2569
2570 * New remote packets
2571
2572 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
2573
2574 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
2575 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
2576 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
2577 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
2578
2579 QProgramSignals:
2580
2581 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
2582 program without GDB involvement.
2583
2584 * New command line options
2585
2586 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
2587 before loading inferior.
2588 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
2589 execute it before loading inferior.
2590
2591 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
2592
2593 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
2594 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
2595 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
2596 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
2597 inferior changes.
2598
2599 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
2600 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
2601
2602 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
2603 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
2604 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
2605 target hardware watchpoint.
2606
2607 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
2608 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
2609 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
2610 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
2611
2612 * Python scripting
2613
2614 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
2615 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
2616 existing one.
2617
2618 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
2619 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
2620 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
2621 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
2622 now "message", which just prints the error message without
2623 the stack trace.
2624
2625 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
2626 Python API.
2627
2628 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
2629 modules library. This module provides functionality for
2630 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
2631 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
2632 corresponding value.
2633
2634 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
2635 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
2636 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
2637 on GDB start-up.
2638
2639 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
2640 static_block will return the global and static blocks
2641 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
2642 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
2643
2644 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
2645
2646 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
2647 "gdb.breakpoints".
2648
2649 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
2650 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
2651 available in the CLI.
2652
2653 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
2654 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
2655 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
2656 "some_type.items()".
2657
2658 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
2659 new object file.
2660
2661 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
2662 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
2663 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
2664 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
2665 any anonymous fields.
2666
2667 * MI changes
2668
2669 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
2670 "solib-event".
2671
2672 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
2673 "=breakpoint-modified".
2674
2675 ** New command -ada-task-info.
2676
2677 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
2678 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
2679 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
2680 lives.
2681
2682 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
2683 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
2684 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
2685 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
2686 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
2687
2688 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
2689 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
2690
2691 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
2692 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
2693 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
2694 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
2695 use this option to specify where to find it.
2696
2697 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
2698 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
2699 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
2700 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
2701 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
2702 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
2703 section in the user manual for more details.
2704
2705 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
2706 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
2707 become available after that.
2708
2709 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
2710
2711 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
2712 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
2713 gcc version 4.7.
2714
2715 * New commands
2716
2717 !SHELL COMMAND
2718 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
2719 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
2720
2721 * Changed commands
2722
2723 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
2724 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
2725 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
2726
2727 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
2728 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
2729 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
2730
2731 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
2732 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
2733 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
2734 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
2735 name starts with a hyphen.
2736
2737 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
2738 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
2739 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
2740 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
2741 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
2742 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
2743 number of bytes that will be collected.
2744
2745 tstart [NOTES]
2746 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
2747 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
2748 setting the variable trace-notes.
2749
2750 tstop [NOTES]
2751 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
2752 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
2753 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
2754 trace-stop-notes.
2755
2756 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
2757 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
2758 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
2759 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
2760 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
2761 is running.
2762
2763 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
2764 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
2765 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
2766
2767 * New options
2768
2769 set debug dwarf2-read
2770 show debug dwarf2-read
2771 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
2772 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
2773
2774 set debug symtab-create
2775 show debug symtab-create
2776 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
2777 creation. The default is off.
2778
2779 set extended-prompt
2780 show extended-prompt
2781 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
2782 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
2783 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
2784 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
2785 prompt is displayed.
2786
2787 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
2788 show print entry-values
2789 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
2790 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
2791 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
2792
2793 set debug entry-values
2794 show debug entry-values
2795 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
2796 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
2797
2798 set basenames-may-differ
2799 show basenames-may-differ
2800 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
2801 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
2802 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
2803 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
2804 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
2805 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
2806 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
2807 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
2808
2809 set trace-user
2810 show trace-user
2811 set trace-notes
2812 show trace-notes
2813 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
2814 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
2815 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
2816 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
2817
2818 set trace-stop-notes
2819 show trace-stop-notes
2820 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
2821 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
2822 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
2823 started by someone else.
2824
2825 * New remote packets
2826
2827 QTEnable
2828
2829 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2830
2831 QTDisable
2832
2833 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
2834
2835 QTNotes
2836
2837 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
2838
2839 qTP
2840
2841 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
2842
2843 qTMinFTPILen
2844
2845 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
2846 be placed.
2847
2848 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
2849 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
2850
2851 * New targets
2852
2853 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
2854
2855 * New Simulators
2856
2857 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
2858
2859 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
2860
2861 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
2862
2863 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
2864
2865 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
2866 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
2867 matches the given regular expression.
2868
2869 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
2870
2871 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
2872 dumping the instruction opcodes.
2873
2874 * New command line options
2875
2876 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
2877 This is mostly for testing purposes.
2878
2879 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
2880 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
2881
2882 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
2883 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
2884 source path list instead of augmenting it.
2885
2886 * GDB now understands thread names.
2887
2888 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
2889 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
2890
2891 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
2892 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
2893
2894 * OpenCL C
2895 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
2896 has been integrated into GDB.
2897
2898 * Python scripting
2899
2900 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
2901 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
2902 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
2903
2904 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2905 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
2906 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
2907 and allows for more dynamic content.
2908
2909 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
2910 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
2911 have an is_valid method.
2912
2913 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
2914 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
2915 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
2916
2917 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
2918
2919 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
2920 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
2921 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
2922 that function like so:
2923
2924 result = some_value (10,20)
2925
2926 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
2927 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
2928 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
2929
2930 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
2931 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
2932 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
2933 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
2934 New function: register_pretty_printer.
2935
2936 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
2937 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
2938
2939 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
2940
2941 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
2942 selected thread.
2943
2944 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
2945 holds the thread's name.
2946
2947 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
2948 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
2949 occurring in the process being debugged.
2950 The following events are currently supported:
2951 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
2952 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
2953 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
2954
2955 * C++ Improvements:
2956
2957 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
2958 instantiation. For example, if you have:
2959
2960 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
2961
2962 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
2963 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
2964 was added to GCC 4.5.
2965
2966 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
2967 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
2968 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
2969 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
2970 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
2971 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
2972
2973 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
2974 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
2975 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
2976 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
2977 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
2978
2979 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
2980 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
2981 execution to a label.
2982
2983 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
2984 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
2985 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
2986 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
2987
2988 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
2989 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
2990 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
2991 of scope.
2992
2993 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
2994
2995 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
2996 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
2997 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
2998 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
2999 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3000 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3001
3002 (gdb) info threads
3003 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3004
3005 While now you see this:
3006
3007 (gdb) info threads
3008 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3009
3010 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3011 dumps.
3012
3013 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3014 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3015 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3016 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3017
3018 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3019 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3020 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3021 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3022 section in the user manual for more details.
3023
3024 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3025
3026 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3027 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3028
3029 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3030
3031 * New native configurations
3032
3033 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3034
3035 * New targets:
3036
3037 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3038
3039 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3040 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3041 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3042 in the GDB user manual.
3043
3044 * Guile support was removed.
3045
3046 * New features in the GNU simulator
3047
3048 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3049
3050 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3051
3052 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3053
3054 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3055
3056 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3057 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3058 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3059 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3060 was always disabled for such configurations.
3061
3062 * C++ Improvements:
3063
3064 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3065
3066 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3067 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3068 For example:
3069 namespace A
3070 {
3071 class B { };
3072 void foo (B) { }
3073 }
3074 ...
3075 A::B b
3076 foo(b)
3077 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3078 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3079 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3080
3081 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3082
3083 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3084 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3085 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3086 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3087 entry.
3088 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3089 mentioned flavors of operators.
3090
3091 ** static const class members
3092
3093 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3094 class definition has been fixed.
3095
3096 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3097
3098 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3099 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3100 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3101 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3102 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3103 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3104
3105 * Static tracepoints
3106
3107 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3108 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3109 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3110 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3111 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3112 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3113 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3114 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3115 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3116 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3117 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3118 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3119 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3120 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3121 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3122 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3123 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3124 the "New remote packets" section below.
3125
3126 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3127
3128 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3129 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3130 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3131 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3132
3133 * Observer mode
3134
3135 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3136 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3137 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3138 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3139 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3140 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3141 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3142
3143 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3144 current thread.
3145
3146 * New remote packets
3147
3148 qGetTIBAddr
3149
3150 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3151
3152 qRelocInsn
3153
3154 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3155 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3156 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3157 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3158 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3159 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3160
3161 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
3162
3163 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3164
3165 qTSTMat
3166
3167 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3168 program.
3169
3170 qXfer:statictrace:read
3171
3172 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3173 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3174 to gdb's qSupported query.
3175
3176 QAllow
3177
3178 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3179
3180 QTDPsrc
3181
3182 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3183 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3184
3185 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3186 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3187 a directory.
3188
3189 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3190
3191 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3192 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3193 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3194 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3195
3196 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3197 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3198 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3199 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3200 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3201 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3202 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3203
3204 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3205 for static tracepoints support.
3206
3207 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3208
3209 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3210 it understands register description.
3211
3212 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3213
3214 * X86 general purpose registers
3215
3216 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3217 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3218 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3219 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3220 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3221
3222 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3223 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3224 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3225 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3226 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3227 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3228
3229 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3230 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3231 in the specified file.
3232
3233 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3234 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3235 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3236 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3237 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3238 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3239 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3240 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3241 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3242 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3243
3244 * New commands
3245
3246 eval template, expressions...
3247 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3248 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3249
3250 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3251 show target-file-system-kind
3252 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3253 names.
3254
3255 save breakpoints <filename>
3256 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3257 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3258 definitions, use the `source' command.
3259
3260 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3261 is now deprecated.
3262
3263 info static-tracepoint-markers
3264 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3265
3266 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3267 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3268 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3269
3270 set observer on|off
3271 show observer
3272 Enable and disable observer mode.
3273
3274 set may-write-registers on|off
3275 set may-write-memory on|off
3276 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3277 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3278 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3279 set may-interrupt on|off
3280 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3281 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3282 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3283 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3284 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3285 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3286 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3287
3288 set record memory-query on|off
3289 show record memory-query
3290 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3291 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3292
3293 * Changed commands
3294
3295 disassemble
3296 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3297
3298 * Python scripting
3299
3300 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3301 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3302 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3303 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3304 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3305
3306 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3307 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3308 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3309 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3310
3311 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3312 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3313
3314 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3315
3316 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3317
3318 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3319
3320 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3321 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3322 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3323
3324 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3325 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3326 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3327 regular breakpoints.
3328
3329 * New targets
3330
3331 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3332
3333 * D language support.
3334 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3335 language.
3336
3337 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3338 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3339 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3340 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3341 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3342
3343 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3344 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3345 conditions of the form:
3346
3347 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3348
3349 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3350 interface mentioned above.
3351
3352 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3353
3354 * C++ Improvements
3355
3356 ** Namespace Support
3357
3358 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3359 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3360 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3361 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3362 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3363
3364 ** Bug Fixes
3365
3366 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3367 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3368 qualified name.
3369
3370 ** Cast Operators
3371
3372 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3373 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3374
3375 * New targets
3376
3377 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3378 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
3379
3380 * New Simulators
3381
3382 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3383 Renesas RX rx
3384
3385 * Multi-program debugging.
3386
3387 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3388 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3389 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3390 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3391 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3392 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3393 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3394 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3395
3396 * New tracing features
3397
3398 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3399
3400 ** Trace state variables
3401
3402 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3403 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3404 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3405 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3406 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3407 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3408 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3409 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3410 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3411 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3412
3413 ** Fast tracepoints
3414
3415 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3416 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3417 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3418 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3419 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3420 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3421 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3422 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3423 the regular trace command.
3424
3425 ** Disconnected tracing
3426
3427 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
3428 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
3429 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
3430 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
3431 connection is lost unexpectedly.
3432
3433 ** Trace files
3434
3435 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
3436 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
3437 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
3438 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
3439 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
3440 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
3441 <name>".
3442
3443 ** Circular trace buffer
3444
3445 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
3446 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
3447 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
3448 not be available for all target agents.
3449
3450 * Changed commands
3451
3452 disassemble
3453 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
3454 the arguments to be comma-separated.
3455
3456 info variables
3457 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
3458 which only declare a variable are not shown.
3459
3460 source
3461 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
3462 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
3463 support.
3464
3465 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
3466 "set script-extension" (see below).
3467
3468 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3469
3470 record save [<FILENAME>]
3471 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
3472 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
3473
3474 record restore <FILENAME>
3475 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
3476 earlier time, for replay debugging.
3477
3478 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
3479 Add a new inferior.
3480
3481 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
3482 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
3483 inferior has loaded.
3484
3485 remove-inferior ID
3486 Remove an inferior.
3487
3488 maint info program-spaces
3489 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
3490
3491 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
3492 show remote interrupt-sequence
3493 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
3494 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
3495 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
3496 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
3497 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
3498
3499 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
3500 show remote interrupt-on-connect
3501 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
3502 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
3503 Linux kernel.
3504
3505 set remotebreak [on | off]
3506 show remotebreak
3507 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
3508
3509 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
3510 Create or modify a trace state variable.
3511
3512 info tvariables
3513 List trace state variables and their values.
3514
3515 delete tvariable $NAME ...
3516 Delete one or more trace state variables.
3517
3518 teval EXPR, ...
3519 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
3520 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
3521
3522 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
3523 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
3524
3525 * New expression syntax
3526
3527 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
3528 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
3529
3530 * New options
3531
3532 set follow-exec-mode new|same
3533 show follow-exec-mode
3534 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
3535 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
3536 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
3537
3538 set default-collect EXPR, ...
3539 show default-collect
3540 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
3541 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
3542 such as registers or a critical global variable.
3543
3544 set disconnected-tracing
3545 show disconnected-tracing
3546 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
3547 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
3548 upon disconnection.
3549
3550 set circular-trace-buffer
3551 show circular-trace-buffer
3552 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
3553 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
3554 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
3555 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
3556
3557 set script-extension off|soft|strict
3558 show script-extension
3559 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
3560 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
3561 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
3562 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
3563 evaluation failed.
3564 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
3565
3566 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
3567 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
3568 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
3569 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
3570 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
3571 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
3572 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
3573 is on.
3574
3575 * Python API Improvements
3576
3577 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
3578 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
3579 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
3580
3581 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
3582 `is_base_class' attribute.
3583
3584 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
3585
3586 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
3587 evaluate an expression.
3588
3589 * New remote packets
3590
3591 QTDV
3592 Define a trace state variable.
3593
3594 qTV
3595 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
3596
3597 QTDisconnected
3598 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
3599
3600 QTBuffer:circular
3601 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
3602
3603 qTfP, qTsP
3604 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
3605
3606 * Bug fixes
3607
3608 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
3609
3610 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
3611 much more reliable. In particular:
3612 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
3613 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
3614 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
3615 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
3616 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
3617 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
3618 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
3619 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
3620 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
3621 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
3622 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
3623 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
3624 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
3625 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
3626 non-threaded programs.
3627
3628 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
3629 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
3630 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
3631 executable program.
3632
3633 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
3634
3635 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
3636 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
3637 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
3638 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
3639 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
3640
3641 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
3642 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
3643 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
3644 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
3645 for tracepoint actions.
3646
3647 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
3648 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
3649 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
3650
3651 * Process record and replay
3652
3653 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
3654 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
3655 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
3656 execute commands.
3657
3658 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
3659 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
3660 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
3661 reverse execution.
3662
3663 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
3664 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3665 2.6.28 or later.
3666
3667 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
3668 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
3669 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
3670 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
3671 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
3672 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
3673 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
3674 the installation instructions for more information.
3675
3676 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
3677 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
3678 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
3679 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
3680
3681 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
3682 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
3683
3684 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
3685 now complete on file names.
3686
3687 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
3688 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
3689 For instance, consider:
3690
3691 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
3692 # struct example variable;
3693 (gdb) p variable.
3694
3695 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
3696 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
3697
3698 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
3699 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
3700
3701 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
3702 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
3703 macros.
3704
3705 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
3706 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
3707 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
3708
3709 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
3710 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
3711 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
3712 and simulator targets may also provide them.
3713
3714 * New remote packets
3715
3716 qSearch:memory:
3717 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3718
3719 QStartNoAckMode
3720 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
3721 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
3722 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
3723
3724 vKill
3725 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
3726 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
3727
3728 qXfer:osdata:read
3729 Obtains additional operating system information
3730
3731 qXfer:siginfo:read
3732 qXfer:siginfo:write
3733 Read or write additional signal information.
3734
3735 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
3736
3737 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
3738 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
3739 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
3740
3741 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
3742 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
3743
3744 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
3745 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
3746 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
3747
3748 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
3749 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
3750
3751 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
3752
3753 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
3754
3755 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
3756 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
3757
3758 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
3759 list of section offsets.
3760
3761 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
3762 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
3763 have also been fixed.
3764
3765 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
3766 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
3767 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
3768
3769 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
3770 example, given:
3771
3772 template<typename T> class C { };
3773 C<char const *> c;
3774
3775 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
3776
3777 ptype C<char const *>
3778 ptype C<char const*>
3779 ptype C<const char *>
3780 ptype C<const char*>
3781
3782 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
3783
3784 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
3785 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3786
3787 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
3788 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3789 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
3790
3791 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
3792 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
3793
3794 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
3795 gdbserver.
3796
3797 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
3798 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
3799
3800 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
3801 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
3802 as appropriate.
3803
3804 * Python scripting
3805
3806 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
3807 available is determined at configure time.
3808
3809 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
3810
3811 * Ada tasking support
3812
3813 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
3814 been introduced:
3815
3816 info tasks
3817 Print the list of Ada tasks.
3818 info task N
3819 Print detailed information about task number N.
3820 task
3821 Print the task number of the current task.
3822 task N
3823 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
3824
3825 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
3826 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
3827
3828 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
3829
3830 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
3831 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
3832 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
3833 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
3834 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
3835 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
3836 below.
3837
3838 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
3839 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
3840 information.
3841
3842 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
3843 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
3844 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
3845 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
3846 more information.
3847
3848 * Multi-architecture debugging.
3849
3850 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
3851 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
3852 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
3853 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
3854 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
3855
3856 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
3857 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
3858 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
3859 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
3860 --enable-targets configure option.
3861
3862 * Non-stop mode debugging.
3863
3864 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
3865 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
3866 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
3867 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
3868 section in the user manual for more information.
3869
3870 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
3871 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
3872 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
3873 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
3874 extensions on linux targets.
3875
3876 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
3877
3878 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
3879 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
3880 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
3881 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
3882 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
3883 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
3884 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
3885 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
3886 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
3887
3888 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
3889 val1 [, val2, ...]
3890 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
3891
3892 maint set python print-stack
3893 maint show python print-stack
3894 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
3895
3896 python [CODE]
3897 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
3898
3899 macro define
3900 macro list
3901 macro undef
3902 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
3903 interactively.
3904
3905 info os processes
3906 Show operating system information about processes.
3907
3908 info inferiors
3909 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
3910
3911 inferior NUM
3912 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
3913
3914 detach inferior NUM
3915 Detach from inferior number NUM.
3916
3917 kill inferior NUM
3918 Kill inferior number NUM.
3919
3920 * New options
3921
3922 set spu stop-on-load
3923 show spu stop-on-load
3924 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3925
3926 set spu auto-flush-cache
3927 show spu auto-flush-cache
3928 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
3929 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
3930
3931 set sh calling-convention
3932 show sh calling-convention
3933 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
3934
3935 set debug timestamp
3936 show debug timestamp
3937 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
3938
3939 set disassemble-next-line
3940 show disassemble-next-line
3941 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
3942 the debuggee stops.
3943
3944 set remote noack-packet
3945 show remote noack-packet
3946 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
3947 under "New remote packets."
3948
3949 set remote query-attached-packet
3950 show remote query-attached-packet
3951 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
3952
3953 set remote read-siginfo-object
3954 show remote read-siginfo-object
3955 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
3956 packet.
3957
3958 set remote write-siginfo-object
3959 show remote write-siginfo-object
3960 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
3961 packet.
3962
3963 set remote reverse-continue
3964 show remote reverse-continue
3965 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
3966
3967 set remote reverse-step
3968 show remote reverse-step
3969 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
3970
3971 set displaced-stepping
3972 show displaced-stepping
3973 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
3974 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
3975 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
3976
3977 set debug displaced
3978 show debug displaced
3979 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
3980
3981 maint set internal-error
3982 maint show internal-error
3983 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
3984
3985 maint set internal-warning
3986 maint show internal-warning
3987 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
3988
3989 set exec-wrapper
3990 show exec-wrapper
3991 unset exec-wrapper
3992 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
3993
3994 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
3995 show multiple-symbols
3996 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
3997 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
3998 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
3999
4000 set breakpoint always-inserted
4001 show breakpoint always-inserted
4002 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4003 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4004 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4005
4006 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4007 show arm fallback-mode
4008 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4009 show arm force-mode
4010 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4011 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4012 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4013 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4014
4015 set disable-randomization
4016 show disable-randomization
4017 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4018 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4019 multiple debugging sessions.
4020
4021 set non-stop
4022 show non-stop
4023 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4024 a breakpoint.
4025
4026 set target-async
4027 show target-async
4028 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4029 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4030 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4031 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4032
4033 set target-wide-charset
4034 show target-wide-charset
4035 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4036 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4037
4038 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4039 show tcp auto-retry
4040 set tcp connect-timeout
4041 show tcp connect-timeout
4042 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4043 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4044 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4045
4046 set libthread-db-search-path
4047 show libthread-db-search-path
4048 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4049 libthread_db.
4050
4051 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4052 show schedule-multiple
4053 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4054 the current process.
4055
4056 set stack-cache
4057 show stack-cache
4058 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4059 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4060 affecting correctness.
4061
4062 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4063 show interactive-mode
4064 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4065 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4066 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4067 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4068 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4069
4070 * Removed commands
4071
4072 info forks
4073 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4074 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4075 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4076 command.
4077
4078 fork NUM
4079 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4080 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4081 alias for the `fork' command.
4082
4083 process PID
4084 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4085 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4086 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4087
4088 delete fork NUM
4089 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4090 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4091 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4092 fork' command.
4093
4094 detach fork NUM
4095 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4096 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4097 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4098 fork' command.
4099
4100 * New native configurations
4101
4102 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4103
4104 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4105
4106 * New targets
4107
4108 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4109 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4110 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4111 S+core 3 score-*-*
4112
4113 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4114 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4115
4116 * Removed commands
4117
4118 catch load
4119 catch unload
4120 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4121
4122 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4123
4124 * New native configurations
4125
4126 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4127 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4128
4129 * New targets
4130
4131 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4132 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
4133
4134 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4135
4136 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4137 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4138 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4139 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4140
4141 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4142 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4143
4144 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4145 is resolved.
4146
4147 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4148 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4149 and in inlined functions.
4150
4151 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4152 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4153 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4154
4155 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4156
4157 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4158 registers on PowerPC targets.
4159
4160 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4161 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4162
4163 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4164 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4165
4166 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4167 extended-remote mode.
4168
4169 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4170 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4171 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4172 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4173
4174 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4175 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4176 target architectures.
4177
4178 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4179 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4180 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4181 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4182
4183 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4184 breakpoints now.
4185
4186 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4187 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4188 include:
4189 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4190 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4191 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4192 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4193 of an assignment
4194 - Improved command completion in Ada
4195 - Several bug fixes
4196
4197 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4198 process.
4199
4200 * New commands
4201
4202 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4203 show print frame-arguments
4204 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4205 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4206
4207 remote put
4208 remote get
4209 remote delete
4210 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4211
4212 * New MI commands
4213
4214 -target-file-put
4215 -target-file-get
4216 -target-file-delete
4217 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4218
4219 * New remote packets
4220
4221 vFile:open:
4222 vFile:close:
4223 vFile:pread:
4224 vFile:pwrite:
4225 vFile:unlink:
4226 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4227
4228 vAttach
4229 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4230 mode.
4231
4232 vRun
4233 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4234
4235 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4236
4237 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4238 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4239 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4240
4241 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4242 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4243 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4244
4245 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4246 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4247 is not supported.
4248
4249 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4250 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4251
4252 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4253 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4254
4255 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4256
4257 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4258 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4259 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4260
4261 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4262 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4263
4264 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4265 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4266 as strings.
4267
4268 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4269 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4270 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4271
4272 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4273 iWMMXt coprocessor.
4274
4275 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4276 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4277 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4278
4279 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4280
4281 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4282
4283 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4284 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4285 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4286
4287 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4288 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4289
4290 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4291 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4292 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4293 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4294 Windows and SymbianOS).
4295
4296 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4297 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4298
4299 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4300 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4301
4302 * New commands
4303
4304 set remoteflow
4305 show remoteflow
4306 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4307 when debugging using remote targets.
4308
4309 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4310 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4311 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4312 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4313 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4314 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4315 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4316
4317 set breakpoint auto-hw
4318 show breakpoint auto-hw
4319 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4320 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4321 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4322 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4323 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4324 including "next" and "finish".
4325
4326 catch exception
4327 catch exception unhandled
4328 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4329
4330 catch assert
4331 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4332
4333 set sysroot
4334 show sysroot
4335 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4336 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4337 an alias to "set sysroot".
4338
4339 info spu
4340 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4341 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4342 architecture.
4343
4344 * New native configurations
4345
4346 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4347
4348 set tdesc filename
4349 unset tdesc filename
4350 show tdesc filename
4351 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4352 not query the target for its built-in description.
4353
4354 * New targets
4355
4356 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4357 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4358 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4359
4360 * New remote packets
4361
4362 QPassSignals:
4363 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4364 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4365
4366 qXfer:features:read:
4367 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4368 features.
4369
4370 qXfer:spu:read:
4371 qXfer:spu:write:
4372 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4373 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4374
4375 qXfer:libraries:read:
4376 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4377 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4378 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4379 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4380
4381 * Removed targets
4382
4383 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4384
4385 alpha*-*-osf1*
4386 alpha*-*-osf2*
4387 d10v-*-*
4388 hppa*-*-hiux*
4389 i[34567]86-ncr-*
4390 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
4391 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4392 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4393 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4394 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4395 i[34567]86-*-sco*
4396 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4397 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
4398 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
4399 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4400 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4401 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
4402 i[34567]86-*-isc*
4403 m68*-cisco*-*
4404 m68*-tandem-*
4405 mips*-*-pe
4406 rs6000-*-lynxos*
4407 sh*-*-pe
4408
4409 * Other removed features
4410
4411 target abug
4412 target cpu32bug
4413 target est
4414 target rom68k
4415
4416 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4417
4418 target hms
4419 target e7000
4420 target sh3
4421 target sh3e
4422
4423 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
4424 H8/300.
4425
4426 target ocd
4427
4428 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
4429 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
4430 interfaces.
4431
4432 DWARF 1 support
4433
4434 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
4435 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
4436
4437 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
4438
4439 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
4440 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
4441 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
4442 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
4443
4444 MIPS ".pdr" sections
4445
4446 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
4447 in debugging information.
4448
4449 Scheme support
4450
4451 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
4452 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
4453
4454 set mips stack-arg-size
4455 set mips saved-gpreg-size
4456
4457 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
4458
4459 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
4460
4461 * New targets
4462
4463 Xtensa xtensa-elf
4464 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
4465
4466 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
4467 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
4468 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
4469
4470 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
4471 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
4472 supported.
4473
4474 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
4475 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
4476
4477 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
4478 stub provides the required support.
4479
4480 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
4481 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
4482
4483 * New commands
4484
4485 set substitute-path
4486 unset substitute-path
4487 show substitute-path
4488 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
4489 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
4490 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
4491 between compilation and debugging.
4492
4493 set trace-commands
4494 show trace-commands
4495 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
4496 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
4497 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
4498
4499 * REMOVED features
4500
4501 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
4502
4503 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
4504 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
4505
4506 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
4507
4508 * New remote packets
4509
4510 qSupported:
4511 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
4512 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
4513 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
4514 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
4515 target.
4516
4517 qXfer:auxv:read:
4518 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
4519 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
4520
4521 qXfer:memory-map:read:
4522 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
4523 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
4524
4525 vFlashErase:
4526 vFlashWrite:
4527 vFlashDone:
4528 Erase and program a flash memory device.
4529
4530 * Removed remote packets
4531
4532 qPart:auxv:read:
4533 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
4534 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
4535
4536 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
4537
4538 * New targets
4539
4540 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
4541
4542 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4543
4544 * New commands
4545
4546 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
4547 only if it doesn't already have a value.
4548
4549 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
4550
4551 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
4552
4553 restart <n> Return the program state to a
4554 previously saved state.
4555
4556 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
4557
4558 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
4559
4560 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
4561 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
4562
4563 info forks List forks of the user program that
4564 are available to be debugged.
4565
4566 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
4567 forks of the user program that are
4568 available to be debugged.
4569
4570 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4571 that are available to be debugged (and
4572 kill the forked process).
4573
4574 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
4575 that are available to be debugged (and
4576 allow the process to continue).
4577
4578 * New architecture
4579
4580 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
4581
4582 * Improved Windows host support
4583
4584 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
4585 native console support, and remote communications using either
4586 network sockets or serial ports.
4587
4588 * Improved Modula-2 language support
4589
4590 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
4591 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
4592 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
4593 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
4594 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
4595 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
4596
4597 * REMOVED features
4598
4599 The ARM rdi-share module.
4600
4601 The Netware NLM debug server.
4602
4603 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
4604
4605 * New native configurations
4606
4607 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
4608 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
4609
4610 * New targets
4611
4612 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
4613
4614 * New command line options
4615
4616 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
4617 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
4618 the child (debugged) program exited with.
4619 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
4620 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
4621 specified multiple times and in conjunction
4622 with the --command (-x) option.
4623
4624 * Deprecated commands removed
4625
4626 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
4627 removed:
4628
4629 Command Replacement
4630 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
4631 othernames set arm disassembler
4632 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
4633 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
4634 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
4635 regs info registers
4636
4637 * New BSD user-level threads support
4638
4639 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
4640 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
4641 configurations are:
4642
4643 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4644 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
4645 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
4646
4647 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
4648 are not yet supported.
4649
4650 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
4651 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
4652
4653 * REMOVED configurations and files
4654
4655 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
4656 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
4657 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
4658
4659 * New "set print array-indexes" command
4660
4661 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
4662 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
4663 behavior.
4664
4665 * VAX floating point support
4666
4667 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
4668
4669 * User-defined command support
4670
4671 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
4672 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
4673 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
4674
4675 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
4676
4677 * New command line option
4678
4679 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
4680 debugging.
4681
4682 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
4683
4684 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
4685 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
4686 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
4687 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
4688 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
4689
4690 * Internationalization
4691
4692 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
4693 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
4694 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
4695
4696 * Ada
4697
4698 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
4699 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
4700 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
4701
4702 * New native configurations
4703
4704 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
4705
4706 * Remote 'p' packet
4707
4708 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
4709 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
4710
4711 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
4712
4713 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4714 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
4715 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
4716 i386 application).
4717
4718 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
4719 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
4720 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
4721 configurations:
4722
4723 hppa-*-hpux
4724 ia64-*-aix
4725 mips-*-irix*
4726 *-*-lynx
4727 mips-*-linux-gnu
4728 sds protocol
4729 xdr protocol
4730 powerpc bdm protocol
4731
4732 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4733 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
4734
4735 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4736
4737 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4738 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4739 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4740 permanently REMOVED.
4741
4742 h8300-*-*
4743 mcore-*-*
4744 mn10300-*-*
4745 ns32k-*-*
4746 sh64-*-*
4747 v850-*-*
4748
4749 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
4750
4751 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
4752
4753 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
4754 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
4755 been fixed.
4756
4757 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
4758
4759 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
4760 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
4761 IRIX long double values).
4762
4763 * VAX and "next"
4764
4765 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
4766 command. This problem has been fixed.
4767
4768 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
4769
4770 * Fix for ``many threads''
4771
4772 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
4773 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
4774 error message:
4775
4776 ptrace: No such process.
4777 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
4778
4779 This problem has been fixed.
4780
4781 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
4782
4783 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
4784 GDB to dump core).
4785
4786 * New ``start'' command.
4787
4788 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
4789
4790 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
4791
4792 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
4793 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
4794 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
4795
4796 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
4797 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
4798 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
4799 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
4800 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
4801 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4802 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
4803 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
4804 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4805
4806 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
4807
4808 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
4809 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
4810 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
4811 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
4812 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
4813
4814 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
4815 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
4816 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
4817
4818 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
4819
4820 * New native configurations
4821
4822 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
4823 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
4824 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
4825 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
4826 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
4827 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
4828 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
4829
4830 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
4831
4832 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
4833 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
4834 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
4835 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
4836 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
4837 work, was also included.
4838
4839 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
4840 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
4841
4842 h8300-*-*
4843 mcore-*-*
4844 mn10300-*-*
4845 ns32k-*-*
4846 sh64-*-*
4847 v850-*-*
4848 xstormy16-*-*
4849
4850 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
4851 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
4852
4853 * REMOVED configurations and files
4854
4855 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4856 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4857 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4858 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4859 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
4860 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
4861 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
4862 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
4863 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
4864 sonymips mips-sony-*
4865 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
4866
4867 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
4868
4869 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
4870
4871 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
4872 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
4873 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
4874 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
4875 with GDB".
4876
4877 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
4878
4879 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
4880 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
4881 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
4882 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
4883 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
4884 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
4885 are created.
4886
4887 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
4888
4889 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
4890
4891 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
4892 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
4893 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
4894
4895 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
4896
4897 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
4898 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
4899
4900 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
4901
4902 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
4903 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
4904 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
4905
4906 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
4907
4908 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
4909 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
4910
4911 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
4912
4913 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
4914 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
4915 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
4916
4917 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
4918
4919 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
4920 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
4921 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
4922
4923 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
4924
4925 * Removed --with-mmalloc
4926
4927 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
4928 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
4929
4930 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
4931
4932 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
4933 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
4934 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
4935 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
4936
4937 * Revised SPARC target
4938
4939 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
4940 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
4941 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
4942 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
4943 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
4944
4945 * New C++ demangler
4946
4947 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
4948 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
4949 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
4950 programs.
4951
4952 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
4953
4954 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
4955 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
4956 encountered these.
4957
4958 * C++ nested types and namespaces
4959
4960 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
4961 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
4962 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
4963 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
4964 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
4965 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
4966 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
4967 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
4968 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
4969
4970 * New native configurations
4971
4972 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
4973 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
4974 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
4975 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
4976 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
4977
4978 * New debugging protocols
4979
4980 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
4981
4982 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
4983
4984 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
4985 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
4986 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
4987
4988 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
4989
4990 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4991 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4992 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4993 permanently REMOVED.
4994
4995 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
4996 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
4997 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
4998 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
4999 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5000 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5001 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5002 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5003 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5004 sonymips mips-sony-*
5005 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5006
5007 * REMOVED configurations and files
5008
5009 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5010 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5011 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5012 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5013 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5014 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5015 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5016 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5017 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5018 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5019 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5020 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5021 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5022 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5023 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5024 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5025 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5026
5027 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5028
5029 * Objective-C
5030
5031 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5032 integrated into GDB.
5033
5034 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5035
5036 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5037 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5038 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5039 backtraces.
5040
5041 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5042 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5043 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5044
5045 * Hosted file I/O.
5046
5047 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5048 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5049 remote protocol documentation for details.
5050
5051 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5052
5053 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5054 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5055 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5056 ppc32 on ppc64).
5057
5058 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5059
5060 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5061 per-thread variables.
5062
5063 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5064
5065 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5066 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5067
5068 * Separate debug info.
5069
5070 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5071 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5072 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5073 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5074 and optional debug files.
5075
5076 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5077
5078 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5079 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5080 debugger.
5081
5082 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5083 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5084
5085 * Java
5086
5087 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5088 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5089 considered "useable".
5090
5091 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5092
5093 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5094 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5095 kernel.
5096
5097 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5098
5099 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5100 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5101
5102 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5103
5104 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5105 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5106 command.
5107
5108 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5109
5110 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5111 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5112
5113 * Profiling support
5114
5115 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5116 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5117 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5118 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5119 data, for more informative profiling results.
5120
5121 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5122
5123 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5124 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5125 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5126
5127 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5128 removed.
5129
5130 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5131 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5132 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5133 in a subsequent -var-update.
5134
5135 * New native configurations.
5136
5137 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5138
5139 * Multi-arched targets.
5140
5141 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5142 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5143
5144 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5145
5146 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5147 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5148 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5149 permanently REMOVED.
5150
5151 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5152 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5153 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5154 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5155 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5156 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5157 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5158 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5159 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5160 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5161 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5162 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5163
5164 * REMOVED configurations and files
5165
5166 V850EA ISA
5167 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5168 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5169 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5170 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5171 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5172 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5173 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5174 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5175 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5176 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5177 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5178 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5179 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5180
5181 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5182
5183 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5184 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5185 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5186 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5187 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5188
5189 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5190
5191 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5192
5193 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5194 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5195 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5196 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5197 shared libs like mad''.
5198
5199 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5200
5201 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5202 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5203 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5204 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5205
5206 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5207
5208 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5209 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5210 they expand.
5211
5212 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5213 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5214
5215 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5216 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5217
5218 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5219 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5220 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5221 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5222
5223 * Multi-arched targets.
5224
5225 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5226 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5227 NEC V850 v850-*-*
5228 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5229 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5230 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5231
5232 * New targets.
5233
5234 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5235
5236
5237 * New native configurations
5238
5239 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5240 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5241 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5242 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5243
5244 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5245
5246 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5247 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5248 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5249 permanently REMOVED.
5250
5251 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5252 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5253 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5254 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5255 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5256 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5257 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5258 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5259 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5260 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5261 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
5262 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5263 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5264
5265 * OBSOLETE languages
5266
5267 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5268
5269 * REMOVED configurations and files
5270
5271 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5272 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5273 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5274 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5275 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5276
5277 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5278
5279 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5280
5281 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5282 commands. The default is 1024.
5283
5284 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5285
5286 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5287
5288 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5289
5290 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5291 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5292 from a file into memory (restore).
5293
5294 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5295
5296 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5297 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5298 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5299
5300 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5301
5302 * New targets.
5303
5304 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
5305
5306 * Bug fixes
5307
5308 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5309 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5310 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5311
5312 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5313 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5314 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5315
5316 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5317 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5318 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5319
5320 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5321 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5322 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5323
5324 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5325
5326 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5327
5328 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5329 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5330 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5331 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5332 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5333 (notably embedded) targets.
5334
5335 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5336
5337 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5338 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5339 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5340 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5341
5342 * New command line option
5343
5344 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5345
5346 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5347
5348 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5349 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5350 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5351 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5352 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5353 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5354 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5355 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5356 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5357 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5358
5359 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5360
5361 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5362 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5363
5364 * New native configurations
5365
5366 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5367 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5368 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5369 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5370
5371 * New targets
5372
5373 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5374
5375 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5376
5377 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5378 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5379 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5380 permanently REMOVED.
5381
5382 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5383 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5384 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5385 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5386 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5387
5388 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5389
5390 * REMOVED configurations and files
5391
5392 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5393 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5394 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5395 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5396 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5397 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5398 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5399 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5400 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5401 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5402 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5403 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5404 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5405
5406 * Changes to command line processing
5407
5408 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5409 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5410
5411 * Changes to key bindings
5412
5413 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5414
5415 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5416
5417 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5418
5419 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5420 corrupted.
5421
5422 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5423
5424 Numerous documentation fixes.
5425
5426 Numerous testsuite fixes.
5427
5428 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
5429
5430 * New native configurations
5431
5432 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
5433 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
5434 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
5435 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5436 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5437 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
5438
5439 * New targets
5440
5441 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
5442 CRIS cris-axis
5443 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
5444
5445 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5446
5447 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
5448 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5449 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5450 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5451 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5452 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
5453 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5454 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5455 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5456 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5457 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5458 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5459 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5460 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
5461
5462 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
5463 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
5464
5465 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5466 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5467 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5468 permanently REMOVED.
5469
5470 * REMOVED configurations and files
5471
5472 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5473 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5474 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5475 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5476 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5477 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
5478
5479 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
5480
5481 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
5482 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
5483 present.
5484
5485 * Other news:
5486
5487 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
5488
5489 * The MI enabled by default.
5490
5491 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
5492 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
5493 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
5494 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
5495 which is now deprecated.
5496
5497 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
5498
5499 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
5500 main features are supported:
5501
5502 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
5503
5504 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
5505 extension;
5506
5507 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
5508
5509 - a Pascal expression parser.
5510
5511 However, some important features are not yet supported.
5512
5513 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
5514
5515 - there are some problems with boolean types;
5516
5517 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
5518 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
5519
5520 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
5521
5522 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
5523
5524 * Changes in completion.
5525
5526 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
5527 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
5528 users expect at the shell prompt.
5529
5530 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
5531 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
5532 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
5533 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
5534 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
5535 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
5536 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
5537
5538 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
5539
5540 * New platform-independent commands:
5541
5542 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
5543 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
5544 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
5545
5546 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
5547
5548 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
5549 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
5550 many threads as your system allows you to have.
5551
5552 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
5553
5554 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
5555 multi-threaded programs though.
5556
5557 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
5558
5559 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
5560
5561 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
5562 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
5563 supported.)
5564
5565 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
5566
5567 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
5568 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
5569 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
5570 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
5571 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
5572 registers.
5573
5574 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
5575 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
5576 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
5577
5578 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
5579
5580 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
5581 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
5582
5583 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
5584 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
5585 IDT.
5586
5587 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
5588 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
5589 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
5590 a given linear address.
5591
5592 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
5593 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
5594 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
5595
5596 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
5597
5598 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
5599
5600 * Changes in documentation.
5601
5602 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
5603 Documentation License.
5604
5605 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5606 manual.
5607
5608 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
5609
5610 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
5611 manual.
5612
5613 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
5614 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
5615 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
5616
5617 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
5618
5619 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
5620 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
5621 contents of this file.
5622
5623 * gdba.el deleted
5624
5625 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
5626
5627 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
5628
5629 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
5630
5631 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
5632 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
5633 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
5634 greater level of detail.
5635
5636 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
5637
5638 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
5639 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
5640 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
5641 written.
5642
5643 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
5644
5645 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
5646 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
5647 machines ``out of the box''.
5648
5649 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
5650 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
5651 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
5652 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
5653 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
5654
5655 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
5656 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
5657 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
5658 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
5659 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
5660
5661 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
5662 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
5663 also works.
5664
5665 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
5666 GDB.
5667
5668 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
5669 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
5670 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
5671 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
5672
5673 * New native configurations
5674
5675 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
5676 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5677
5678 * New targets
5679
5680 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
5681 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
5682 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
5683 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5684
5685 * OBSOLETE configurations
5686
5687 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
5688 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
5689 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
5690 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
5691 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
5692
5693 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5694 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5695 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5696 be permanently REMOVED.
5697
5698 * Gould support removed
5699
5700 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
5701
5702 * New features for SVR4
5703
5704 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
5705 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
5706 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
5707
5708 * Many C++ enhancements
5709
5710 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
5711 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
5712
5713 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
5714
5715 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
5716 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
5717 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
5718 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
5719
5720 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
5721 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
5722
5723 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
5724
5725 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
5726 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
5727 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
5728
5729 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
5730 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
5731
5732 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
5733
5734 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
5735 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
5736 include ``set remote P-packet''.
5737
5738 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
5739
5740 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
5741 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
5742 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
5743
5744 * ``apropos'' command added.
5745
5746 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
5747 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
5748 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
5749
5750 * New MI interface
5751
5752 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
5753 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
5754 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
5755 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
5756 enabled by configuring with:
5757
5758 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
5759
5760 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
5761
5762 * New native configurations
5763
5764 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
5765 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
5766 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
5767
5768 * New targets
5769
5770 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5771 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
5772 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5773
5774 * OBSOLETE configurations
5775
5776 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
5777
5778 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
5779 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
5780 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
5781 be permanently REMOVED.
5782
5783 * ANSI/ISO C
5784
5785 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
5786 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
5787 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
5788 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
5789 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
5790 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
5791 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
5792 already.
5793
5794 * Readline 2.2
5795
5796 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
5797
5798 * set extension-language
5799
5800 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
5801 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
5802 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
5803 set extension-language .c c++
5804 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
5805 and their associated languages.
5806
5807 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
5808
5809 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
5810 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
5811 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
5812
5813 set processor NAME
5814
5815 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
5816 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
5817
5818 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
5819 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
5820 403 IBM PowerPC 403
5821 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
5822 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
5823 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
5824 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
5825 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
5826 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
5827 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
5828 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
5829
5830 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
5831 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
5832 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
5833 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
5834
5835 * HP-UX support
5836
5837 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
5838 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
5839 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
5840 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
5841 for xdb and dbx commands.
5842
5843 * Catchpoints
5844
5845 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
5846 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
5847 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
5848
5849 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
5850 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
5851 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
5852
5853 * Debugging across forks
5854
5855 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
5856 in the inferior.
5857
5858 * TUI
5859
5860 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
5861 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
5862 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
5863
5864 * GDB remote protocol additions
5865
5866 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
5867 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
5868 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
5869 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
5870
5871 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
5872 full 64-bit address. The command
5873
5874 set remoteaddresssize 32
5875
5876 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
5877 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
5878 will be discarded.
5879
5880 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
5881 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
5882
5883 maint packet heythere
5884
5885 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
5886 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
5887 time.
5888
5889 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
5890 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
5891 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
5892
5893 * Tracing can collect general expressions
5894
5895 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
5896 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
5897 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
5898
5899 * mask-address variable for Mips
5900
5901 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
5902 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
5903 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
5904
5905 * Higher serial baud rates
5906
5907 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
5908 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
5909 to achieve all of these rates.)
5910
5911 * i960 simulator
5912
5913 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
5914 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
5915
5916
5917 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5918
5919 * New native configurations
5920
5921 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
5922 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
5923 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
5924 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
5925 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5926 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
5927 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
5928
5929 * New targets
5930
5931 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5932 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
5933 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5934 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
5935 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
5936 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
5937 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
5938 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
5939 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5940 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5941 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
5942
5943 * New debugging protocols
5944
5945 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
5946 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
5947 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
5948 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5949 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5950 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
5951
5952 * DWARF 2
5953
5954 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
5955 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
5956 information.
5957
5958 * Java frontend
5959
5960 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
5961 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
5962
5963 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
5964
5965 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
5966 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
5967 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
5968
5969 * Live range splitting
5970
5971 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
5972 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
5973 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
5974
5975 * Hurd support
5976
5977 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
5978 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
5979
5980 * ARM Thumb support
5981
5982 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
5983 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
5984 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
5985 accordingly.
5986
5987 * MIPS16 support
5988
5989 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
5990 instruction set.
5991
5992 * Overlay support
5993
5994 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
5995 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
5996 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
5997 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
5998 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
5999 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6000
6001 * info symbol
6002
6003 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6004 the symbol at the specified address.
6005
6006 * Trace support
6007
6008 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6009 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6010 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6011 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6012 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6013
6014 * MIPS simulator
6015
6016 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6017 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6018 of most MIPS variants.
6019
6020 * Sparc simulator
6021
6022 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6023 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6024 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6025
6026 * set architecture
6027
6028 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6029 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6030 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6031 the possible architectures.
6032
6033 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6034
6035 * New native configurations
6036
6037 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6038 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6039 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6040 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6041 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6042 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6043
6044 * New targets
6045
6046 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6047 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6048 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6049 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6050 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6051 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
6052 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6053
6054 * PowerPC simulator
6055
6056 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6057 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6058 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6059 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6060 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6061
6062 * Solaris 2.5
6063
6064 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6065
6066 * Windows 95/NT native
6067
6068 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6069 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6070 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6071 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6072 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6073
6074 * dont-repeat command
6075
6076 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6077 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6078 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6079 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6080
6081 * Send break instead of ^C
6082
6083 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6084 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6085 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6086
6087 * Remote protocol timeout
6088
6089 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6090 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6091 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6092
6093 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6094
6095 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6096 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6097 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6098 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6099 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6100
6101 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6102 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6103 automatically on hpux10.
6104
6105 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6106
6107 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6108
6109 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6110
6111 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6112 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6113 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6114 every character. The default value is 1050.
6115
6116 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6117
6118 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6119 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6120 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6121 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6122 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6123 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6124
6125 * Speedups for remote debugging
6126
6127 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6128 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6129 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6130
6131 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6132
6133 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6134 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6135
6136 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6137
6138 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6139
6140 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6141 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6142
6143 * Remote targets use caching
6144
6145 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6146 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6147 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6148 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6149 off' turns the the data cache off.
6150
6151 * Remote targets may have threads
6152
6153 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6154 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6155 gdb/remote.c for details.
6156
6157 * NetROM support
6158
6159 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6160 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6161 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6162 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6163 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6164 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6165 sequence is something like
6166
6167 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6168 load <prog>
6169 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6170
6171 * Macintosh host
6172
6173 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6174 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6175 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6176 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6177 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6178 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6179 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6180 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6181
6182 * Autoconf
6183
6184 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6185 but does simplify configuration and building.
6186
6187 * hpux10
6188
6189 GDB now supports hpux10.
6190
6191 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6192
6193 * New native configurations
6194
6195 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6196 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6197 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6198 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6199
6200 * New targets
6201
6202 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6203 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6204 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6205 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6206 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
6207
6208 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6209
6210 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6211 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6212 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6213 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6214 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6215
6216 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6217
6218 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6219 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6220 trivial example:
6221 define adder
6222 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6223
6224 To execute the command use:
6225 adder 1 2 3
6226
6227 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6228 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6229 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6230
6231 * New `if' and `while' commands
6232
6233 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6234 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6235 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6236 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6237 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6238 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6239 if the expression is zero.
6240
6241 * Fortran source language mode
6242
6243 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6244 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6245 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6246 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6247 Fortran compilers.
6248
6249 * Better HPUX support
6250
6251 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6252 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6253 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6254 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6255 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6256
6257 adb -w a.out
6258 __dld_flags?W 0x5
6259 control-d
6260
6261 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6262 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6263
6264 adb -w a.out
6265 __dld_flags?W 0x4
6266 control-d
6267
6268 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6269 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6270 external linkage.
6271
6272 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6273 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6274
6275 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6276
6277 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6278 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6279 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6280 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6281 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6282 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6283
6284 * New DOS host serial code
6285
6286 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6287 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6288 a PC's serial port.
6289
6290 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6291
6292 * New "complete" command
6293
6294 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6295 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6296
6297 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6298
6299 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6300 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6301
6302 * Breakpoint hit counts
6303
6304 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6305 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6306 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6307 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6308 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6309 that breakpoint.
6310
6311 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6312
6313 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6314 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6315 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6316
6317 * Shared library breakpoints
6318
6319 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6320 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6321
6322 * Hardware watchpoints
6323
6324 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6325 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6326
6327 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6328
6329 * Annotations
6330
6331 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6332 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6333
6334 * Improved Irix 5 support
6335
6336 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6337
6338 * Improved HPPA support
6339
6340 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6341
6342 * New native configurations
6343
6344 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6345 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6346 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6347 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6348
6349 * New targets
6350
6351 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6352 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6353 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
6354
6355 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6356
6357 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6358 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6359
6360 * Fixes
6361
6362 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6363 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6364
6365 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6366
6367 * Irix 5 is now supported
6368
6369 * HPPA support
6370
6371 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6372 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6373 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6374 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6375 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6376
6377
6378 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6379
6380 * User visible changes:
6381
6382 * Remote Debugging
6383
6384 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6385 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6386 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6387 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6388 debugging info for the mips target).
6389
6390 * DEC Alpha native support
6391
6392 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6393 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6394 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6395 Alpha-specific notes.
6396
6397 * Preliminary thread implementation
6398
6399 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6400
6401 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6402
6403 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6404 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6405 for details).
6406
6407 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6408
6409 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6410 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6411 call methods, ...etc.
6412
6413 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6414
6415 * User visible changes:
6416
6417 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6418 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6419 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6420 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6421
6422 Filename completion now works.
6423
6424 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6425 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6426 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
6427
6428 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
6429 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
6430 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
6431 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
6432 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
6433
6434 * DEC alpha support
6435
6436 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
6437 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
6438
6439
6440 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6441
6442 * Testsuite
6443
6444 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
6445 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
6446 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
6447
6448 * C++ demangling
6449
6450 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
6451 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
6452 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
6453 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
6454 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
6455
6456 * Simulators
6457
6458 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
6459 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
6460 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
6461
6462 * New targets supported
6463
6464 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6465 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
6466 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
6467 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
6468 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
6469
6470 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
6471 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
6472 GO32 memory extender.
6473
6474 * New remote protocols
6475
6476 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
6477
6478 * New source languages supported
6479
6480 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
6481 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
6482 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
6483
6484
6485 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
6486
6487 * HP Precision Architecture supported
6488
6489 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
6490 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
6491 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
6492 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6493 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
6494 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
6495
6496 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
6497
6498 * Faster and better demangling
6499
6500 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
6501 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
6502 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
6503 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
6504 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
6505 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
6506 symbol lookups.
6507
6508 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
6509 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
6510 compiler does not actually implement.
6511
6512 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
6513
6514 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
6515 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
6516 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
6517 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
6518 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
6519 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
6520 fix.
6521
6522 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
6523 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
6524
6525 * Improved configure script
6526
6527 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
6528 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
6529 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
6530 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
6531
6532 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
6533 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
6534 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
6535 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
6536 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
6537 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
6538
6539 * Documentation improvements
6540
6541 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
6542 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
6543 before submitting changes.
6544
6545 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
6546 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
6547 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
6548 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
6549 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
6550
6551 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
6552 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
6553 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
6554 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
6555 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
6556 around this problem.
6557
6558 * New features
6559
6560 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
6561 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
6562 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
6563 the target program.
6564
6565 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
6566 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
6567
6568 * New native hosts supported
6569
6570 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
6571 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
6572
6573 * New targets supported
6574
6575 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
6576
6577 * New file formats supported
6578
6579 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
6580 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
6581
6582 * Major bug fixes
6583
6584 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
6585
6586 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
6587 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
6588
6589 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
6590 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
6591 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
6592
6593 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
6594 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
6595
6596 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
6597 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
6598 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
6599 libraries.
6600
6601 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
6602 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
6603 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
6604 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
6605 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
6606
6607 * Internal improvements
6608
6609 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
6610 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
6611
6612 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
6613 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
6614 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
6615 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
6616 shared code that handles any of them.
6617
6618 * New command line options
6619
6620 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
6621
6622 * Mmalloc licensing
6623
6624 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
6625 General Public License.
6626
6627 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
6628
6629 * Host/native/target split
6630
6631 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
6632 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
6633 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
6634 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
6635 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
6636
6637 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
6638 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
6639 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
6640 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
6641 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
6642 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
6643 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
6644
6645 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
6646 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
6647 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
6648
6649 * New hosts supported
6650
6651 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
6652 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6653 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
6654
6655 * New targets supported
6656
6657 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
6658 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
6659
6660 * New native hosts supported
6661
6662 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
6663 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
6664 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
6665
6666 * New file formats supported
6667
6668 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
6669 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
6670 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
6671
6672 * New commands
6673
6674 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
6675 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
6676 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
6677
6678 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
6679
6680 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
6681 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
6682 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
6683 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
6684
6685 * C++ improvements
6686
6687 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
6688 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
6689 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
6690
6691 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
6692
6693 * Major bug fixes
6694
6695 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
6696 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
6697 by the compiler.
6698
6699 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
6700 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
6701
6702 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
6703 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
6704 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
6705 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
6706 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
6707 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
6708
6709 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
6710 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
6711 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
6712 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
6713
6714 * AMD 29k support
6715
6716 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
6717 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
6718 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
6719 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
6720 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
6721
6722 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
6723 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
6724 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
6725 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
6726
6727 * Remote interfaces
6728
6729 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
6730 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
6731 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
6732 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
6733 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
6734 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
6735 each instruction being stepped through.
6736
6737 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
6738 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
6739
6740 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
6741 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
6742 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
6743 processor with a serial port.
6744
6745 * Configuration
6746
6747 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
6748 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
6749 supported, and what files each one uses.
6750
6751 * Library changes
6752
6753 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
6754 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
6755 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
6756 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
6757
6758 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
6759 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
6760 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
6761 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
6762
6763 * Documentation
6764
6765 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
6766 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
6767 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
6768 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
6769 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
6770 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
6771
6772 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
6773
6774
6775 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
6776
6777 * Better support for C++ function names
6778
6779 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
6780 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
6781 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
6782 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
6783 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
6784
6785 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
6786 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
6787 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
6788 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
6789 for the list of formats.
6790
6791 * G++ symbol mangling problem
6792
6793 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
6794 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
6795 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
6796 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
6797 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
6798 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
6799 this problem.)
6800
6801 * New 'maintenance' command
6802
6803 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
6804 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
6805 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
6806
6807 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
6808 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
6809 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
6810 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
6811 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
6812 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
6813
6814 The following commands are new:
6815
6816 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
6817 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
6818 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
6819
6820 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
6821
6822 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
6823 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
6824 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
6825 read after argv processing.
6826
6827 * New hosts supported
6828
6829 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
6830
6831 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
6832
6833 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
6834 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
6835 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
6836 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
6837 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
6838 It costs extra.
6839
6840 * New targets supported
6841
6842 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
6843
6844 * More smarts about finding #include files
6845
6846 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
6847 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
6848 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
6849 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
6850 the one that contains your sources.
6851
6852 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
6853 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
6854 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
6855
6856 * Interesting infernals change
6857
6858 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
6859 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
6860 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
6861 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
6862
6863 * Bug fixes (of course!)
6864
6865 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
6866 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
6867 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
6868
6869 See the ChangeLog for details.
6870
6871 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
6872
6873 * New machines supported (host and target)
6874
6875 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
6876
6877 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
6878
6879 * New malloc package
6880
6881 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
6882 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
6883 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
6884 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
6885 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
6886 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
6887
6888 * info proc
6889
6890 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
6891 'help info proc' for details.
6892
6893 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
6894
6895 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
6896 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
6897 possible.
6898
6899 * File name changes for MS-DOS
6900
6901 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
6902 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
6903 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
6904 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
6905 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
6906 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
6907
6908 * Cross byte order fixes
6909
6910 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
6911 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
6912
6913 * New -mapped and -readnow options
6914
6915 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
6916 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
6917 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
6918 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
6919 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
6920 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
6921 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
6922 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
6923 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
6924 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
6925
6926 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
6927 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
6928 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
6929 slower, but makes future operations faster.
6930
6931 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
6932 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
6933 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
6934 use is:
6935
6936 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
6937
6938 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
6939 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
6940 shared across multiple host platforms.
6941
6942 * longjmp() handling
6943
6944 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
6945 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
6946 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
6947 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
6948
6949 * Solaris 2.0
6950
6951 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
6952 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
6953 reading symbols.
6954
6955 * Bug fixes
6956
6957 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
6958 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
6959 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
6960
6961 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
6962
6963 * New machines supported (host and target)
6964
6965 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
6966 (except core files)
6967 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
6968 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
6969
6970 * New machines supported (target)
6971
6972 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
6973
6974 * C++ support
6975
6976 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
6977 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
6978 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
6979
6980 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
6981 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
6982 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
6983 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
6984 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
6985 released.
6986
6987 * New features for SVR4
6988
6989 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
6990 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
6991 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
6992
6993 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
6994 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
6995 it prints the address mappings of the process.
6996
6997 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
6998 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
6999
7000 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7001
7002 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7003 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7004 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7005 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7006 same code linked statically.
7007
7008 * New Getopt
7009
7010 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7011 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7012 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7013 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7014 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7015 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7016
7017 * Bugs fixed
7018
7019 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7020 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7021 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7022
7023
7024 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7025
7026 * New machines supported (host and target)
7027
7028 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7029 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7030 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7031
7032 * Almost SCO Unix support
7033
7034 We had hoped to support:
7035 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7036 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7037 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7038 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7039
7040 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7041
7042 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7043 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7044 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7045 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7046 reqired (if any).
7047
7048 * New Readline
7049
7050 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7051 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7052 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7053
7054 * Bugs fixed
7055
7056 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7057 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7058 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7059
7060 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7061
7062 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7063 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7064 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7065
7066 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7067 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7068 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7069 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7070 version 2.
7071
7072 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7073 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7074 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7075 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7076 situation somewhat.
7077
7078 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7079 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7080 methods.
7081
7082 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7083 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7084 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7085
7086
7087 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7088
7089 * Improved configuration
7090
7091 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7092 Porting BFD is simpler.
7093
7094 * Stepping improved
7095
7096 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7097 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7098 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7099 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7100
7101 * Bug fixing
7102
7103 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7104
7105 * New host supported (not target)
7106
7107 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7108
7109
7110 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7111
7112 * Multiple source language support
7113
7114 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7115 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7116 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7117 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7118 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7119 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7120
7121 * GDB and Modula-2
7122
7123 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7124 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7125 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7126 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7127
7128 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7129 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7130 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7131
7132 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7133 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7134
7135 * set write on/off
7136
7137 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7138 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7139 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7140 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7141 effect immediately.
7142
7143 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7144
7145 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7146 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7147 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7148 examining core files.
7149
7150 * set listsize
7151
7152 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7153 The default is 10.
7154
7155 * New machines supported (host and target)
7156
7157 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7158 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7159 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7160
7161 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7162
7163 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7164
7165 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7166
7167 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7168 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7169 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7170
7171 * New remote interfaces
7172
7173 AMD 29000 Adapt
7174 AMD 29000 Minimon
7175
7176
7177 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7178
7179 * New Facilities
7180
7181 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7182
7183 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7184 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7185 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7186 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7187 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7188 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7189 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7190 stub on the target system.
7191
7192 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7193
7194 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7195 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7196 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7197
7198 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7199 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7200
7201
7202 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7203
7204 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7205 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7206
7207 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7208 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7209 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7210
7211 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7212 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7213 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7214 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7215
7216 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7217 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7218 it is already running. Default is ON.
7219
7220 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7221 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7222 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7223 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7224 Default is ON.
7225
7226 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7227 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7228 or the value of the environment variable
7229 GDBHISTFILE.
7230
7231 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7232 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7233 HISTSIZE.
7234
7235 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7236 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7237 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7238
7239 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7240 history expansion will be performed on
7241 command line input. The default is OFF.
7242
7243 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7244 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7245 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7246
7247 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7248 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7249 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7250 variable TERM.
7251
7252 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7253 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7254 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7255 variable TERM.
7256
7257 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7258 ``set width'' instead.
7259
7260 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7261 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7262 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7263 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7264
7265 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7266 is OFF.
7267
7268 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7269 "raw" form if off.
7270
7271 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7272 like instructions.
7273
7274 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7275
7276
7277 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7278
7279 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7280 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7281 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7282 window.
7283
7284
7285 * Support for Shared Libraries
7286
7287 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7288 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7289 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7290 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7291 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7292 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7293 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7294 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7295
7296 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7297 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7298 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7299
7300 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7301
7302
7303 * Watchpoints
7304
7305 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7306 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7307 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7308 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7309 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7310 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7311
7312 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7313
7314 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7315
7316 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7317 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7318 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7319
7320
7321 * C++ multiple inheritance
7322
7323 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7324 for C++ programs.
7325
7326 * C++ exception handling
7327
7328 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7329 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7330 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7331 handler's context).
7332
7333 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7334 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7335 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7336
7337 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7338 current stack frame.
7339
7340
7341 * Minor command changes
7342
7343 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7344 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7345 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7346
7347 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7348 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7349 frames without printing.
7350
7351 * New directory command
7352
7353 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7354 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7355 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7356 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7357 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7358
7359 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7360
7361 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7362 for more details.
7363
7364 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7365 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7366 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7367 where the program that you are debugging will run.